Angles 202 — Demonstrate endorsement-standard angle flying

Application

The angles assessment unit, the point where slot-flying skill (FFP-AN201) is demonstrated at the consistency an endorsement decision consumes.

• Covers the complete small-group angle skill set on 2–3-way jumps with a trained, approved leader: head-first exit and acceleration to the group, quadrant entry, getting on level, controlled approach to docking distance, slot and level holds through the leader’s speed, pitch and heading changes, dock, over-the-top transition to the opposite slot, heading discipline, in-slot recovery.
• And the full breakoff–track–airspace-check–deployment–canopy sequence.

Three doctrinal commitments define the unit (the contemporary standard, per the Leading Workshop A–C notes and the project doctrine):

• Every jump is flown with a leader trained and approved in leading angle jumps, and the leader flies belly-to-earth. A leader must see the ground to navigate, and the group’s safety hangs on the leader’s line, “the leader’s responsibility, in short, is to bring everybody safely to the ground, preferably to the landing area” (Workshop).

  • Belly-lead is the FFP teaching rule and the recommended default: for developing leaders it is the rule, and it stays the default even for experts.
  • Narrow expert exceptions are documented in the corpus and argued against in the knowledge-evidence section below, this unit does not teach back-leading.
  • APF006 §5.12, educational: “the lead flyer must always fly belly to earth”; Workshop C’s trainee-leader back-lead ban –.

• Back-flying is taught and assessed here as a follower skill flown in slot, its own evidence stream, not a leading position at this level.

• Closeness is the standard. “The tighter we are, the safer we are, once we start creating natural separation we have closing speeds, and that’s when the accidents happen” (Workshop).

  • The endorsement-standard flyer holds docking distance on level.
  • In a moving group, distance is not a margin, it is where the closing speeds live.

Results are orientation-specific: belly and back are separate evidence streams with separate results, and competence in one orientation never evidences the other (APF006 §8.7 signs the orientations off separately). The unit’s output is an evidence pack built so the drop-zone authority making the group-size decision can decide directly from it. Leading is out of scope, briefing and leading movement jumps is FFP-AN301.

Applies to flyers who have completed FFP-AN201 in the stream(s) being assessed.

Environment: sky, 2–3-way angle jumps at ≤~60° (guide) from a recommended 10,000 ft minimum; tunnel carving supports preparation but never substitutes for the assessment jumps. Scaffold stage: coach as reference → coach passive, the assessing coach or approved leader flies the belly lead slot and, on assessment jumps, gives no in-air assistance.

Pre-requisite units

FFP-F100 (Establish freefly foundations), FFP-AN101 (Track and navigate, tracking and navigation fundamentals in a coached context), FFP-AN201 (Fly angles in a slot, 2–3-ways with a trained, approved leader, per orientation stream). Both AN201 streams for a both-orientation assessment; one stream suffices for a single-orientation assessment.

Recommended entry check: AN201 judged Competent in the claimed orientation within the previous 6 months (a guide). Experienced entrants: see the RPL evidence set, RPL shortens the preparation, never the assessment series.

Elements and performance criteria

Elements follow the jump lifecycle. Each criterion is judged Satisfactory / Not Yet Satisfactory against the published checklist. Bold criteria are safety-critical and non-compensable, any Not Yet Satisfactory on a bold criterion means Not Yet Competent for that orientation stream regardless of flying quality, because these are the behaviours that prevent the collisions that actually occur on movement jumps.

Every Perform and Complete criterion is assessed separately in the belly and back streams. The single heading tolerance at this tier is ±45°.

1. Plan

1.1

State the assessment dive flow, the orientation stream and the success criteria for the jump.

1.2

Describe the current jump run, the load composition (including any other movement group and its lane) and the leader's flight-path plan, including where the group intends to open.

1.3

Explain the day's upper winds and their effect on freefall drift, the lane and the opening point.

1.4

Assess own currency and the day's conditions against personal limits, and decline or simplify when flags accumulate, declining is a Satisfactory result ("there is no flag that's too small, because it's the small ones that are going to get you", Workshop).

1.5

State the briefed breakoff altitude (guide: 5,000 ft for groups up to 4-way, 5,500 ft for 5-way or larger, and note most modern groups brief 5,500 ft regardless of size), the deployment altitude, the breakoff fan plan, and the left-behind and lost-group plans, a group whose members do not share these numbers has no shared timing at the most dangerous phase of the jump.

2. Prepare

2.1

Complete a movement-jump gear check on self and cross-check the group (hand-deploy BOC or pull-out, bridle fully covered, tight riser covers and closing loop, secure handles and clothing, hard helmet, visual altimeter, audible altimeter checked and set to the briefed breakoff, on an angle jump the audible is the group's shared clock).

2.2

Walk the dive with the group, spending the most time on the breakoff fan, who peels where, with eye contact between breakoff neighbours ("I spend more time on getting the group together and breaking off than I do on actual walking", Workshop).

2.3

Present the flight-path plan and jump-run understanding to the responsible ground authority before boarding (in Australia this is itself a regulatory requirement, the APF Operational Regulations).

2.4

Confirm exit order and separation with the load, separation by ground covered, never a fixed count, and confirm lanes with any other movement group on the load.

3. Perform

3.1

Exit head-first into the relative wind (APF006 §5.5) and accelerate to the group's speed without early braking, acceleration off the hill is what keeps you with the group (Folgerts).

3.2

Fly first to the assigned quadrant, then get on level, the line through the group's heads, then close; never approach by descending onto the slot through the burble corridor trailing up-and-behind the group (level first, then proximity, Workshop –).

3.3

Close aiming ahead of the group, never at it, halving the remaining distance in controlled stages, "only fly as fast as you can think" (Workshop –).

3.4

Hold the slot at docking distance, on level and in quadrant, legs never passing the leader's head (Workshop), through the leader's briefed speed and pitch changes.

3.5

Take the briefed dock without disturbing the leader's line.

3.6

Fly over the top of the leader to dock on the opposite side, keeping the whole body above the formation, never dropping a shoulder underneath (APF006 §5.12).

3.7

Hold slot and level through a briefed turn, flying the outside arc with speed rather than cutting inside, turns are curves, not corners (Workshop).

3.8

Keep the group's heading whenever displaced from the slot, side-slide or adjust speed to close, and never turn 180° from the group's heading or back toward jump run, off-heading collisions carry the highest closing speeds, and the left-behind flyer who turns away onto a personal skydive is the modern epidemic (USPA SIM 5-10.E; Workshop –).

3.9

Execute in-slot recovery as second nature on any instability: add speed in the group's direction on the jump's angle, never ball up, never track away; if separation persists, hold the group's heading and follow, stopping the closure by ~7,000–7,500 ft, holding the distance and breaking off on the group's timing, not its altitude, breaking off early, high and blind above a descending group is how followers meet deploying canopies (APF006 §4.3 "Do not track away!"; Workshop –).

4. Complete

4.1

Initiate breakoff at the briefed altitude (within −0/+300 ft), on the group's timing, the classic pull-time collision is a flyer still closing while the group slows to deploy (Workshop).

4.2

Fan off in the briefed order, leader continues straight, everyone else peels progressively to a maximum ~90°, looking before turning, turning flat from the hips, never turning in place, breakoff "is not so much of a race as it is a basketball game" (APF006 §5.10; Workshop –).

4.3

On back-stream jumps, scan and roll from back to belly only once on a clear trajectory with no one above (USPA SIM 5-10.E), flown looking, the roll is itself the airspace check.

4.4

Track flat and fast on the chosen line (heading held ±45°), converting speed into separation with a gradual flatten, never snapping flat or collapsing the body position when the audible fires (Workshop –).

4.5

Complete a smooth airspace check during the track without losing heading (±45°) or track efficiency, on the belly stream a controlled barrel roll (flown only because it is smooth and reliable, APF006 §3.3, §8.4); on the back stream the 4.3 roll serves the check.

4.6

Deploy at the planned altitude after visually checking airspace in all directions, with relative work discontinued at least 1,000 ft above planned deployment (mandatory in Australia, the APF Operational Regulations); if directly above someone at pull height, deploy, never try to out-track them (APF006 §3.3).

4.7

Fly the agreed canopy plan: hold position and heading after opening until the other groups' canopies are seen open before flying toward jump run (Workshop), and no turns toward neighbouring canopies in the first seconds, a post-opening 90° toward each other has wrapped two canopies inside three seconds (Workshop).

5. Review

5.1

Debrief each jump against the published checklist using the jump video, talking through own decision-making, heading awareness, level, closure rate, altitude calls.

5.2

Self-assess each criterion Satisfactory / Not Yet Satisfactory from the footage before seeing the assessor's marks, justifying any differences.

5.3

If you have access to a GPS, compare the planned line, the line you think you flew, and the trace, the three-picture debrief is the fastest feedback loop in movement flying (Workshop); optional enrichment, not a requirement.

5.4

Log each jump (orientation stream, group size, leader's name) with criteria results and the assessor's countersignature, building the evidence pack.

Foundation skills

• Briefing and debriefing communication (movement-jump vocabulary: quadrants, levels, docking distance, lanes, the fan).
• Altitude and wind numeracy (drift reasoning, breakoff timing, opening-point logic).
• Planning (reading a flight-path plan and knowing your own place in it).
• Self-management under assessment pressure (recovery discipline, and the honesty to decline a jump when flags accumulate).
• Record-keeping (per-stream checklist, logbook and video discipline).

Performance evidence (a guide to how long it might take — adjust locally)

• Per orientation stream: the Freefly and Angles Guide Angles Level 1 guide is a minimum of 3 jumps showing competency and consistency in all skills (APF006 §8.7).
  • This unit reads consistency as at least 3 consecutive jumps meeting all criteria without coach assistance.
  • A jump with a Not Yet Satisfactory criterion is debriefed and re-flown after coaching, a re-fly is part of learning, not a failure.
• Most flyers arrive over roughly 6–10 coached angle jumps per orientation including preparation, a guide to how long it might take, not a quota.
  • Current FFP-AN201 competence shortens it.
  • Tunnel carving can support the preparation (never the assessment jumps).
• Evidence ideally spans at least two days and two different upper-wind pictures per stream, so the planning criteria are evidenced in more than one condition.
• All evidence within a recommended 6-month currency window.
• Results are orientation-specific: each stream claimed produces its own series, checklist set and pack.

The evidence pack (the unit’s defined output):

1. Video of the assessment jumps with the candidate identifiable (leader-, coach- or outside-flown; helmet footage plus a recorded talk-through supports the pack where outside video is impracticable).
2. The completed FFP-AN202 checklist for each jump, signed by the assessing coach/leader, filed per orientation stream.
3. Logbook entries for each jump (date, DZ, exit altitude, group size, orientation flown, leader’s name and signature).
4. The candidate’s briefed flight-path plans (DZ-map sketch or written plan: jump run, lane, breakoff, opening point), the navigation evidence.
5. Knowledge-evidence record (responses noted by the assessor).
6. Currency summary and certificate/licence status.

• What the completed pack supports, stated plainly: in Australia, it is the evidence base for the drop zone safety officer’s written logbook endorsement for tracking/angles descents greater than a 3-way (the APF Operational Regulations, the endorsement operates once Certificate Class C is held, and belongs to the issuing drop zone) and for the Freefly and Angles Guide Angles Level 1 sign-off.
• Under which the Freefly and Angles Guide guide is participation up to 5-way in the passed orientation (APF006 §8.7).

Elsewhere, it is a portable competence record supporting the local drop-zone authority’s own decision. It does not qualify anyone to lead a movement jump, that is FFP-AN301, and it never transfers automatically between drop zones.

Knowledge evidence

The candidate can, at minimum (mirrors the APF006 §8.1 angles evaluation criteria; contemporary doctrine cited to the Leading Workshop notes):

• State the breakoff guides, 5,000 ft for groups up to 4-way, 5,500 ft for 5-way and larger, noting most modern groups brief 5,500 ft regardless of size, and the reasoning behind them.
  • The ≥1,000 ft separation between the end of relative work and planned deployment.
  • And the group-size ladder before and after the endorsement.
  • Mandatory in Australia, the APF Operational Regulations; the APF educational minima are 4,500 ft for a 2-way and 5,000 ft for 3-way or larger, APF006 §3.3.
• Describe the movement-jump gear check and why each item matters, in particular why the audible is set to the briefed breakoff: on an angle jump it is the group’s shared clock (APF006 §3.1; USPA SIM 5-10’s two-audible recommendation).
• Explain why FFP teaches and defaults to belly-lead, and the scope of the documented exceptions: the leader must see the ground to navigate and owns the whole group’s opening points, and a back-flyer’s navigation sight picture is degraded, so for developing leaders belly-lead is the rule, and it stays the recommended default even for experts.
  • The exceptions the corpus records, stated honestly: APF006 §5.12 is educational and says the lead flyer “must” fly belly to earth.
  • Workshop C is a trainee-leader back-lead ban, but also calls back-leading “a great tool” for very experienced flyers with a specific purpose, notably filming belly flyers’ exits, which belly-lead cannot do –.
  • Skydive Arizona and British Skydiving §3.7 permit a back-flying leader only with an experienced belly-to-earth “mirror” flyer above for directional control.
  • Skydive Spaceland says “avoid” leading on your back, not “never”.
  • Why FFP still defaults to belly even for experts: the mirror exception re-introduces a belly navigator anyway (the mirror does the real navigation), so belly-lead never actually leaves the picture.
  • The only exception FFP concedes is the brief exit-filming back-exit, and it never applies to developing leaders, which is why this unit teaches back-flying strictly as a follower skill.
  • Context: on movement jumps that transition orientations (dynamic), the active leader is still always on belly, achieved with two leaders handing over (downstream, FFP-DY201; the project’s coaching doctrine).
  • Looking over a shoulder without moving the torso; ground references hard to see; accuracy suffers.
• Explain why learners fly angles only with a trained, approved leader: the leader’s umbrella responsibility (“bring everybody safely to the ground, preferably to the landing area”, Workshop).
  • What leader approval looks like.
  • Community benchmarks: Spaceland’s evaluated approved-leader list, Arizona’s drop zone safety officer-approved organizer rule).
  • And why an unled group of learners is the highest-risk configuration, “it’s better than them just doing it and going off unstructured” (Workshop).
  • Historical case evidence (Australian, 2011–14 era) for the same doctrine: the recurring failure modes of the uncoached, no-plan angle/atmo era are on the record, hard openings from insufficient speed reduction after an atmo jump (ASM 56 p.74).
  • Target-fixation and height loss at atmo breakoff (ASM 65 pp.55–56).
  • And the drop-zone-safety-officer warning against flyers who “show up with no plan and put up a big Angle dive” (ASM 73 p.29).
  • Conceptually, Bryan Burke’s “The Horizontal Flight Problem” framed uncoached, low-jump-number angle flying with cameras as the next safety frontier, use his conceptual framing only, not any of his numeric figures (they are unverified) (ASM 70 p.29; ASM 71 pp.25–26).
  • These period cases are why the FFP default is a briefed plan and a trained leader, not solo experimentation.
• Explain closing-speed doctrine: why tightness is safety and in-group distance is where closing speeds live (Workshop).
  • The flags model of incident causation, accumulations of small things, not single big ones (Workshop).
  • And the docking-distance standard, “even though we’re not docking, we should be flying in a docking distance” (Workshop).
• Explain quadrant and burble geometry: belly flyers above the leader’s line and slightly ahead, back-flyers below and slightly behind.
  • Lateral offsets grow as the jump flattens (bigger burble) and everyone can fly more head-to-head as it steepens.
  • Never let your legs pass the leader’s head (APF006 §5.13; Workshop –).
• Explain the recovery and left-behind doctrine: add speed in the group’s direction, never ball up, never track away (APF006 §4.3; Joyriders; Miilumäki).
  • Hold the group’s heading, never turning 180° from it or back toward jump run (USPA SIM 5-10.E; Joyriders).
  • Stop closing by ~7,000–7,500 ft and hold the distance.
  • Break off on the group’s timing, not its altitude.
  • The trailing flyer owns the extra separation.
  • If still separated at breakoff, deploy higher after checking above.
• Explain breakoff mechanics: the peel-off fan (leader continues straight, outer flyers turn furthest, never turn in place, APF006 §5.10).
  • Look before turning and always assume somebody is there (Workshop).
  • Flat hip-led turns.
  • The gradual flatten that converts vertical speed into separation.
  • Why “pulling early is not a breakoff” (Austin) and why “pulling to clear the airspace” is dumping fabric into it (Workshop).
  • The back-flyer rule, stay on the back until the trajectory is clear with no one above, then roll to belly (USPA SIM 5-10.E).
  • And the pull-priority rule, directly above someone at pull height, deploy, never try to out-track them (APF006 §3.3).
• State, as briefing knowledge for larger groups: the Carlton GPS evidence, head-up flying buys almost no breakoff separation (no significant glide-ratio change into breakoff), so in groups of six or more, flyers should be head-first by ~6,500–7,000 ft (Carlton, skydivemag), consistent with the ~30°-per-flyer breakoff-geometry ceiling of about six for intermediate groups (Workshop).
• Explain exit-order and lane logic at participant level: movement groups fly a briefed lane off jump run.
  • Two movement groups take opposite or divergent lanes.
  • Around two movement groups per load is the common guide.
  • An angle group is not a tracking group for exit-order purposes.
  • Separation is ground covered, never a fixed count of seconds.
  • Freefly fall rates, roughly half the horizontal coverage, Burke, “The Horizontal Flight Problem”.
• State, if you have access to a GPS, the reference speed bands as information: flat tracks descend around 180 km/h with a good track making ~100 mph horizontally.
  • Steep angles run 300+ km/h, and how knowing the bands helps a dropped flyer change pitch to re-join (Miilumäki; Workshop).
• Describe the endorsement chain in the local jurisdiction, who signs what, what it unlocks, and why it is specific to the issuing drop zone.
• Analyse own footage: mark each performance criterion with justification, and diagnose one level, heading or closure fault using the line-through-heads test (Joyriders).

Assessment conditions

• Environment: sky, recommended 10,000 ft minimum.
  • Group of 2–3 including the assessing coach or approved leader, who flies the belly-to-earth lead slot.
  • Angles to ~60° (guide).
  • Conditions within the candidate’s cleared limits, with upper winds and any other movement group on the load briefed before boarding.
• Video: the default on every assessment jump (leader-, coach- or outside-flown), candidate identifiable.
  • The assessor’s direct observation and completed checklist are the authoritative record.
  • Helmet footage plus a talk-through debrief is acceptable supporting evidence where outside video is impracticable.
• Equipment: visual altimeter.
  • Functioning audible set to the briefed breakoff (a second audible recommended).
  • AAD recommended.
  • Movement-suitable gear per the FFP-F100 standard.
  • GPS optional but valuable.
  • Hand-deploy BOC or pull-out, bridle fully covered, tight riser covers, secure handles and clothing.
  • Equipment suitability is a regulatory prerequisite in Australia, the APF Operational Regulations.
• Assessor: a freefly coach or approved movement leader current in angle coaching, flying the lead slot and giving no in-air assistance on assessment jumps, using the published FFP-AN202 checklist, criteria published to the candidate in advance.
  • Satisfactory / Not Yet Satisfactory per criterion.
  • Competent / Not Yet Competent per orientation stream.
  • Australia: an APF Freefly Coach or drop zone safety officer-approved leader, the APF Operational Regulations; elsewhere the national or drop-zone equivalent, e.g. a British Skydiving TR coach or a DZ movement-jump evaluator.
• Non-compensable rule: any Not Yet Satisfactory on a bold criterion (1.5, the audible item in 2.1, 3.8, 3.9, 4.1, 4.3 on back-stream jumps, 4.6) = Not Yet Competent for that stream.
  • The affected jump is re-flown in full after corrective coaching.
• Multiple occasions: the series-plus-preparation history satisfies the sufficiency rule; a single jump never evidences the unit.
• Result granularity: orientation-specific, belly and back are separate streams flown on separate jumps; Competent in one stream does not credit the other.

Coaching priorities

Deliver in the project’s priority order: Safety → Fun → Learning (curriculum Part A0). Safety criteria are non-compensable and never traded for a pass, breakoff, heading and recovery discipline outrank slot polish on every jump.

Assessment pressure is actively managed so the series stays enjoyable: a relaxed candidate flies the standard they trained, a Not Yet Satisfactory jump is a debrief and a re-fly rather than a failure, and every debrief ends on a win with one improvement focus.

RPL evidence set

For experienced entrants (movement-jump history at other drop zones, overseas grades, heavy tunnel backgrounds):

• Alternative preparation evidence (replaces FFP-AN201 and the preparation guide, per stream claimed): logbook evidence of led 2–3-way angle jumps in the claimed orientation with named leaders (a guide of 15+ movement jumps), plus footage, outside video, or helmet footage with a talk-through, showing docking-distance slot flying on level.
  • or British Skydiving TR1 + TR2 (TR3 where >45° work is claimed) or a national equivalent.
  • or an existing drop-zone tracking/angles endorsement plus recent movement-jump currency.
  • or tunnel records of sustained belly and back carving across a speed range plus recent led sky angle jumps evidencing the transfer.
• The assessment itself is never RPL’d: the candidate flies the assessment series (the 3-jumps-per-stream guide) as challenge jumps with the assessing coach/leader, producing the full evidence pack.
  • Preparation evidence should show led or coached jumps, a history of unled angle jumps opens a doctrine conversation, not a door.
  • It is not preparation evidence.

Sources