Head-Down 401 — Fly head-down big-ways

Application

Covers flying head-down in big-way formations, 6-way and larger, up to record-scale, built from a linked base plus unlinked divers and floaters, under a load organiser. What makes a jump a big-way is less the number than the character: a base with floaters and divers approaching it from above and below at the same time.

The candidate flies base, diver and floater roles: staged float drop-offs on exit, inverse-stadium approaches, overfloat-free float discipline, sting/dock/break-in onto the formation, and fan-out arc breakoffs (two-stage above a 12-way, as a guide).

Applies to flyers competent at FFP-HD301 (head-down group flying, 4-way exit slot craft, docking craft).

Environment: sky, big-way traffic, exit stacks and staged breakoffs cannot be replicated in the tunnel; tunnel drills support docking and approach mechanics only.

Supervision: within organised jumps under an experienced head-down load organiser (scaffold stage: peers → organised big-ways; the target standard is naturalisation, the candidate’s own slot runs without conscious attention while awareness sits on traffic, formation state and the organiser’s keys). This is a Mastery-tier unit: completion is a milestone, not a sign-off, it confers no rating, endorsement or jump permission.

Pre-requisite units

FFP-HD202 ★ (crest-standard head-down flying) and FFP-HD301 (head-down group flying), which carry the full chain FFP-F100 → FFP-HD101 → FFP-HD102 → FFP-HD201. RPL route: logbook evidence of head-down group jumps at HD301 standard (4-way exits, docking, group breakoffs) plus one challenge jump against the FFP-HD301 criteria; see also this unit’s RPL evidence set.

Elements and performance criteria

1. Plan the jump

1.1

State own slot, approach lane, grips and key responses from the organiser's formation engineering brief.

1.2

Confirm the exit stack order and the staged float drop-off timing for own position (floats released across "ready" / "set" / "and" as briefed, creating clean air for the base).

1.3

Confirm own currency and qualifications against the organiser's entry criteria and the local jurisdiction's gates.

1.4

State own breakoff wave, breakoff altitude, assigned radial and deployment altitude, confirming at least 1,000 ft between own breakoff and deployment.

1.5

Verify the breakoff design gives approximately 30° of radial separation per jumper, single-stage up to a 12-way, the standard two-stage split above a 12-way (and, as the sensible default, above a 10-way for newer groups), confirming every wave banks at least 1,000 ft between breakoff and deployment (guide; adjust for skill level).

2. Prepare

2.1

Complete a freefly-specific gear check (handles, BOC, riser covers, closing loop, helmet, audibles set to own wave's altitudes and functioning).

2.2

Walk the exit stack in the mock-up in the briefed order (divers staggered down the aisle; floats stacked outside the door).

2.3

Dirt-dive own exit count, approach lane, dock and breakoff radial through the full sequence at least twice.

2.4

Confirm exit order and separation from other groups with the loadmaster, a big-way needs more separation from the preceding group (a long exit stack takes time in the door), and the following group should give a big-way extra space, knowing there will be large freefall drift and potentially some breakoffs angling up jump run.

3. Perform

3.1

Exit in the assigned stack position on the briefed count without contacting the aircraft or another jumper (floats: drop off on own staged count, low and behind the base; divers: rotate out facing the prop from the staggered stack).

3.2

(Base) Fly the base's heading and levels with the leader, arresting rotation, Outside Centre holding the sight picture of the aircraft's path finishing between Inside Centre's legs.

3.3

(Diver) Establish the post-exit picture head-down, high and up jump run of the base on Inside Centre's side, wind on back, eyes on the base.

3.4

(Floater) Exit in a de-powered back-fly attitude and rotate progressively to head-down, powering up legs and arms only once the sight picture to the base is established.

3.5

Fly the inverse-stadium approach: from low and behind, divers first diving to a point to the side of and below the formation, stepping toward and then slightly up to the formation, arriving at a point below the base, with the same grips and concepts in both roles.

3.6

Keep the base in the blue throughout the approach, sky visible behind the base at all times, aborting below and re-setting on the inverse stadium if the base sinks toward the green.

3.7

Hold static arm geometry on the approach: fingers below wrists, wrists below elbows, elbows below shoulders.

3.8

Make the final move from 2–3 head-levels below the base, flying the whole body over the formation to the grip without reaching forward or down.

3.9

Sting, dock or break in with the briefed grips (thumb-down overgrip sting, thumbs-up undergrip dock; gentle pressure), without destabilising the formation.

3.10

Present for the next docker: arm wide of the leg burble, hand in a fist, eyes back into the group.

3.11

Adjust own approach lane to remain clear of converging diver trajectories while continuing to fly the slot.

3.12

Execute the recovery/abort immediately on any instability or lost slot, back out below and clear of the formation, re-approaching only when stable on the inverse stadium; never recover over the top of the formation.

4. Complete

4.1

Initiate breakoff with own wave at the briefed altitude (within −0/+300 ft), regardless of formation completeness.

4.2

Turn onto the assigned radial and track the fan-out arc, holding approximately 30° of separation from adjacent jumpers, checking own track direction against jump run as the fan opens and adjusting so as not to track straight up the line of flight. If own assigned radial falls within ~30° of jump run, shade the track away from the jump-run line as briefed (the neighbour on the safe side holds their radial and the two accept a compressed gap between them, a briefed trade that beats tracking straight up jump run into another group's airspace).

4.3

Maintain a fast fall rate through the initial track, decelerating progressively only when clear of the airspace beneath the later wave.

4.4

Deploy at own wave's briefed altitude after checking airspace (barrel roll only if it can be flown smoothly).

4.5

Fly the briefed canopy separation and landing-order plan.

5. Review

5.1

Debrief own slot against outside-camera and own video, classifying each approach as clean, corrected or aborted.

5.2

Identify any overfloating indicator (base toward the green, reaching, drive over the formation) in own or others' flying, and its correction.

5.3

Contribute own observations of exit, traffic and breakoff execution to the organiser's debrief.

5.4

Write the jump up in the logbook with reflections naming the unit and skills assessed (e.g. "HD401, floater approach, wave-2 breakoff"), the criteria results and the next jump's objective, the curriculum is what makes a log entry mean something.

Bold criteria are safety-critical, strongly recommended best-practice standards within FFP courses, not regulations. In assessment they are treated as non-compensable (a Not Yet Satisfactory on a bold criterion means the unit is Not Yet Competent regardless of flying quality) because on a big-way a breakoff, deployment or abort error puts a whole load at risk, not just the flyer.

Role-tagged criteria (3.2–3.4) are assessed in the role(s) the candidate flies; 3.5–3.8 apply to floaters and divers alike, a diver dives to a point to the side of and below the formation, then flies the same inverse stadium with the same grips and concepts as a floater.

Foundation skills

• Briefing comprehension and communication within large groups (organiser keys, slot briefs, structured debrief contributions).
• Altitude and separation numeracy (arc geometry, wave altitudes, breakoff-to-deployment margins, closing speeds).
• Planning and organising (exit stacks, approach lanes).
• Self-management under stress (abort discipline, backing out of a slot on a jump that took a whole load to build).
• Teamwork and traffic awareness while task-loaded.

Performance evidence (suggested sufficiency — adjust locally)

• A guide to what this unit typically takes, expectation-setting, not a gate.
• Competency is the standard, not the jump count: around 12 organised head-down group jumps of 6-way or larger, including around 4 of 10-way or larger, flown in at least two of the three roles (base, diver, floater), across at least two different events/days and conditions, including consecutive jumps (typically 3) meeting all criteria without organiser assistance or prompts, and a couple of jumps flown to a two-stage breakoff plan.

Tunnel time may evidence docking and approach mechanics (sting/present/dock/break-in) but cannot substitute for any of the group jumps, big-way traffic, exit stacks and staged breakoffs exist only in the sky.

Staying current: a big-way every 12 months is a reasonable rhythm for smaller big-ways; the bigger the jump, the more graduated the work-up should be, building back through smaller formations toward the target size, scaled to the size of the jump and the time since the last one.

Knowledge evidence

• Design a breakoff plan for a nominated group size using the fan-out arc equivalence, approximately 30° of radial separation per jumper, so a 12-way head-down breakoff across 360° is comparable in angular terms to an average 6-way angle breakoff across 180°, justifying single-stage versus two-stage and verifying every stage keeps at least 1,000 ft between breakoff and deployment.
  • A group-size heuristic, not a promise of equal metres, angle flyers carry established horizontal velocity into breakoff so adjacent radials diverge immediately, while head-down flyers start from near-zero and must build the track that opens the gap, so the same 30° buys far fewer metres in the first seconds of an HD fan.
  • The staged breakoff altitudes, not the raw angle, carry the separation load on a big-way, which is why the two-stage split and its per-wave slow-down margin are what actually guarantee separation.
  • Guide: single-stage, 5,500 ft for a freefly group of 5-way or larger and 5,000 ft up to a 4-way, noting most modern jumpers use 5,500 ft for any freefly group and will generally not accept 4,500 ft.
  • standard two-stage split above a 12-way, and, for newer groups, the sensible default above a 10-way, stingers breaking at 6,500 ft and deploying at 5,000 ft, base breaking at 5,500 ft and deploying at 4,000 ft (1,500 ft banked per wave; the standard base break of 5,500 ft aligns with the 5-way-plus group guide).
  • Floor-compliant variant for highly experienced groups at the organiser’s discretion, stingers 6,000/5,000 ft, base 5,000/4,000 ft, running each wave at the bare the APF Operational Regulations minimum with no margin, the base breaking below the 5,500 ft group guide.
• Explain how a 360° fan-out interacts with jump run, a full 360° fan necessarily assigns some radials up or down jump run, which collides with the stay-off-the-line rule, so brief the shading convention: flyers whose radial falls within ~30° of jump run shade their track away from the line, the neighbour on the safe side holds their radial, and the two accept a compressed gap between them.
  • The fan is intentionally bunched cross-jump-run and thinned along the line, and who shades and who holds is agreed in the dirt-dive, and why a big-way needs extra exit separation in both directions.
  • A tighter gap between two briefed, co-operating jumpers beats a hot track straight up jump run into another group’s column.
  • A long exit stack takes time in the door, so the big-way needs more separation from the preceding group, and the following group should give a big-way extra space for its large freefall drift and the potential for some breakoffs angling up jump run.
• Describe the base wave’s breakoff as the normal group breakoff sequence, break grips, rotate 180°, clear airspace, peel onto the back clearing the airspace above, rotate back to belly, continue clearing airspace, decelerate, deploy, and note that a critical part of this sequence is turning 180° from the formation before tracking, because tracking off without first turning out risks being cut across by another jumper’s line.
  • This era’s vertical big-way cues state it bluntly, “turn 180° first or you will be cut”, and describe the staged fan as tracking off “in waves,” with the outer group opening high.
  • ASM 68 p.65, period corroboration of the fan-out-in-waves breakoff and this unit’s wave-altitude and turn-then-track discipline.
• Explain the rear-riser deployment habit for big-ways, being ready to steer immediately on the rear risers off opening to avoid canopy traffic in a crowded break-off column, a period big-way cue (ASM 68 p.65) that complements the barrel-roll/airspace-check rule below.
• Explain why overfloating is strictly watched and judged on big-ways, a floater carried above and over the base enters the incoming divers’ trajectory, where additive closing speeds make a collision possibly fatal to both.
  • This failure mode is not theoretical, see the C6/C7 carving-collision case study below, a documented jumper-goes-low-then-floats-up-into-the-formation collision.
• Describe how to take a knock in the formation without corking, tuck the chin, close the legs and go faster, and specifically do not spread the legs, a cue documented as standard vertical big-way discipline in this era (ASM 68 p.64, “Vertical Big-Way Fundamentals”) and consistent with the unit’s base-discipline and no-overfloat doctrine.
  • Spreading slows the flyer and pops them up out of level into diver traffic; closing up and driving down holds them on the base.
• Explain the “keep the base in the blue” sight rule and why a base-in-green picture tells a floater they are already high.
• Explain the reaching cycle (reaching forward or down generates lift and drive away from the formation, causing more reaching) and why the corrective is to fly the body onto the grip from 2–3 head-levels below.
• Explain staged float drop-offs, clean air for the base and avoiding bumps.
• State the abort protocol for instability or a lost slot, back out below and clear of the formation and rebuild on the inverse stadium, never over the top, because the airspace above the formation belongs to incoming divers.
• State the deployment airspace-check rule, barrel roll only if it can be flown smoothly, and if directly above another jumper at deployment altitude, deploy rather than attempting to out-track.
• Describe the big-way equipment check, freefly-suitable gear per the FFP-F100 checklist, visual altimeter, audibles set to own wave’s altitudes, and explain why a mis-set audible defeats a staged breakoff plan.
• Analyse big-way video to attribute a failed floater approach to its cause (overfloat line, reach, broken arm geometry, late power-up).
• Explain the aerodynamic rationale for why lighter flyers tend to make better divers and heavier flyers better floats, floating is a lift task that mass penalises only if the base is slow, so on a fast big-way base a heavy floater’s job is speed-matching (where mass helps) rather than out-lifting, which is why heavy flyers go on the floats of a fast base.
  • Diving from above gives a light diver all the closure they need (gravity supplies it regardless of mass) while their lower mass preserves the stopping range to arrest the dive and hold at the base without overshooting or sinking low, stopping range, not closing ability, is the deciding factor, and the heavier flyer’s cautious, slow closing speed is a symptom of short stopping range, not the underlying reason.
• State the failure modes both ways, a heavy floater who cannot generate the lift to reach the base goes low and never docks, and a light diver being outrun by a fast base should dive steeper (more “out”, more vertical speed) not longer/flatter, because flattening trades away the stopping range that made them the right diver.
  • Heavier, generally larger flyers are also better placed floating outside the aircraft, while smaller divers are nimbler exiting from the confined space of the stack.
  • Recognise the same-person-two-slots trade-off, the heaviest flyer cannot be the HD-exit Outside Front anchor and an outside float at once, so the organiser resolves per jump which role that flyer’s mass serves best and staffs the other slot with the next-best-suited flyer.
  • Recognise it by mid-approach and set up a safe, low, deconflicted deployment rather than chasing a dock they cannot reach.
• Explain how head levels are engineered into a big-way build, later dockers set up progressively higher so the formation grows as a stepped spiral rather than a flat plane, a documented vertical big-way concept (ASM 68 p.65, “Vertical Big-Way Fundamentals”) that underpins the base-in-the-blue and 2–3-head-levels-below approach doctrine.
  • The era’s coaching cue calls this the “weed-whacker” build: the stacked, stepped head levels let the formation absorb closing dockers without the base being driven down.
• Evaluate a proposed formation engineering plan (slot weights, exit stack, approach lanes, breakoff waves, head-level stepping) against the group’s skill level.
• Identify the credential gates that apply in the local jurisdiction (e.g. Australia: the head-down crest above a 3-way; Star Crest plus the applicable the freefly crest above a 10-way).
• Analyse the carving-collision case study below to name the overfloating failure mode that caused it and the gear item whose absence made the outcome worse.

Case study — the C6/C7 carving collision (why overfloating and leg-strap slippage are non-negotiable)

Safety case study for the overfloating (E5, criterion 5.2) and gear-check (E2, criterion 2.1) knowledge above. Human review of this content is mandatory before delivery.

On a 9-way head-down carving dive a jumper went low, then floated back up into the formation and collided with it. The impact knocked the jumper unconscious; in the vertical body attitude the leg straps slipped behind the knees, and the jumper, now unable to deploy, was deployed by the load organiser, landing unconscious with a C6/C7 fracture (source: ASM 71 p.25). Two teaching points sit directly on this unit’s doctrine:

1. The overfloating-into-formation failure mode is real, not hypothetical. This is precisely the sequence the unit’s deconfliction doctrine is built to prevent, a flyer who sinks low and then recovers up through the formation’s airspace rather than backing out below and clear (criteria 3.6, 3.12, and the “keep the base in the blue / never recover over the top” rules).

The case is the reason those rules are non-compensable: on a big-way the airspace above the base belongs to incoming divers, and floating up into it turns a lost slot into a collision. 2. The equipment finding is the historical reason a leg-strap bungee is now a standard freefly gear-check item. Leg-strap slippage behind the knees in a vertical, unconscious body attitude is what removed this jumper’s ability to be safely deployed.

An elastic bungee between the leg straps is today a standard requirement of a freefly-friendly gear check, the FFP-F100 gear audit already lists “leg-strap bungee” as a checked item.

Frame it that way in delivery: the bungee item exists in today’s gear audit because of documented vertical-orientation slippage cases like this one, the history is what makes the check land, rather than reading as one more box to tick.

Assessment conditions

Sky only, on organised head-down group jumps of a recommended 6-way minimum with at least part of the evidence at 10-way or larger; exit altitude a recommended 10,000 ft minimum (APF006 §3.2 guide), with higher exits recommended for big-ways to give build time plus the staged breakoff; a real group is required, no criterion in Element 3 or 4 can be evidenced solo or in the tunnel.

Video: outside footage is by far the most valuable debrief and evidence tool on a big-way, a camera-step stinger or a camera flyer where the aircraft and event allow it, with candidate helmet camera (where permitted) a useful supplement; where no outside camera is practical, organiser observation and other jumpers’ footage can carry the debrief, with the candidate identifiable in whatever footage is used.

Equipment: visual altimeter, functioning audible (two recommended, set to the candidate’s wave altitudes), AAD highly recommended, freefly-suitable gear per the FFP-F100 checklist. Conditions within the organiser’s briefed limits.

Assessor: an experienced head-down big-way load organiser or freefly coach current in head-down big-way flying, using the published FFP-HD401 checklist, each criterion marked Satisfactory / Not Yet Satisfactory, unit judgement Competent / Not Yet Competent. As a Mastery-tier unit, a Competent judgement is recorded as a milestone only: it is not a sign-off and grants no permission.

Coaching priorities

Deliver in the project’s priority order: Safety → Fun → Learning (curriculum Part A0). Safety criteria are non-compensable, breakoff, deployment and abort discipline are never traded for a completed formation, and an early back-out is briefed and debriefed as a correct decision, not a failure, even on a jump that took a whole load to build.

Big-way debriefs classify approaches (clean / corrected / aborted) without blame, celebrate what worked, and end on a win with one improvement focus for the next jump.

RPL evidence set

• For experienced big-way flyers entering at level, the flying itself is the evidence, this is guidance, not a paperwork audit: a logbook history of organised head-down big-way participation (record and sequential events are ideal evidence).
• Video showing approaches with the base kept in the blue, clean docks/break-ins, and wave breakoffs on the assigned radial.
• A word from a recognised head-down big-way organiser who has flown with the candidate.

A challenge jump on an organised big-way, assessed against the FFP-HD401 checklist with the breakoff-design and overfloating knowledge covered in conversation or writing, completes the picture, an experienced organiser will recognise big-way competence quickly.

Sources