Head-Up 101 — Fly a stable sit
version 2026-09-27
Prerequisites
What you’re learning
You’ll learn to hold a stable head-up position on heading, change fall rate, turn, and recover from instability. Head-up is the first vertical position to learn in freefly. This follows Freefly 100, because back-fly is the freefly recovery position.
In Australia, freefly training needs at least a Certificate B.
The position
Sit upright, as if on a chair.
- Feet flat, with even pressure on both.
- Knees bent to 90° and shoulder-width apart, heels directly below the knees.
- Hips at 90° and back straight.
- Arms out to the sides at about 90° for stability.
- Head relaxed, eyes on the horizon. Looking down typically results in backsliding.
Before each jump, hold the position on the ground five times with your eyes open and five closed.
Exit with your back square to the relative wind and fly the hill into the sit, keeping your inputs small while the relative wind changes from horizontal to vertical. Aim to be stable within about 5 seconds, then hold heading for 10 seconds. AXIS covers sit-fly exits, with a video.
Breakoff:
- With others: transition to your back and check the air above and behind you, then back-track, roll to belly and track 90° to jump run before deploying in a neutral belly position.
- Solo: transition to your back then roll to belly. Ensure you’ve slowed to a belly fall rate before deployment.
Faster and slower
Slower ← Knee-fly · Sit · Stag · Stand → Faster
The head-up positions from slowest to fastest are knee-fly, sit, stag and stand. Faster flying positions increase the fall rate, and also make the position less stable. Changing your body position in head-up to be faster or slower should be with smooth and gradual inputs.
Fly the stand only with a reference: in the tunnel, or beside a coach or another jumper. A stand can create a lot of horizontal drive which might not be obvious without a reference.
Turns
Turns can be initiated from your arms, legs, or both. Practise at least two of the three, and know which one you used. Practise turning 360° each way and stopping on heading.
Useful drills
- Exits: facing tail, facing propeller, from inside
- Turns: left and right using arms, legs, and both
- Instability: sit-to-sit front flips, faster 360 turns, on-level back-to-sit transitions
- Break-offs: practising break-offs from head-up
Common mistakes
| What happens | Usual causes | Check |
|---|---|---|
| Backsliding | Knees pushed toward your chest, leaning forward with arms behind you, looking down, tired shoulders rolling forward, feet and knees tucked in | Eyes on the horizon, back upright, knees apart with heels under them |
| Falling onto your back | Toes pointed at the ground, weak lower legs, arms too far forward, curved back | Feet flat, arms out to the sides, back straight |
| Falling onto your belly | Knees bent tighter than 90° with heels tucked under and wind on the shins, or too much arch | Knees at 90°, heels below them |
| Spinning | Uneven pressure from your legs or arms, legs close together, heels out of line with the knees, one thigh higher than the other | Even pressure on both sides, knees apart, thighs level |
You cannot feel that you’re backsliding in head-up, so you rely on the reference of others in the sky.
Every group on the load falls in its own column along the line of jump run. A backslide you have not noticed can carry you into the column of the group that exited before or after you. Once you are stable, turn to face 90° to jump run, the working heading you brief the load on, so a backslide carries you off to the side of the line of jump run into empty air.
When unstable, go straight to the recovery position, get stable, then transition back to the sit and get on heading before you try anything else. Useful recovery drills are sit-to-sit front flips and back flips.
Staying safe
Before the jump:
- Gear check.
- Brief the load on your working heading.
- Brief your breakoff and deployment altitudes. As a guide, breakoff altitude for small groups is usually 5,500 ft.
- A point on shoulder health: if you’ve had a shoulder dislocation or reconstruction, tell your coach before you start head-up.
When you’ve got it
After each jump, debrief the video with your coach and log the jump with any fault, its cause and one fix.
You’ve finished Head-Up 101 when you fly two jumps in a row that meet everything on the coach’s checklist below.
Next
Head-Up 102: Move and transition head-up.
For coaches: the checklist, assessment conditions and coaching priorities
The checklist
1. Plan the jump/session
- 1.1
- State the jump's single declared objective and its success criteria.
- 1.2
- Confirm currency, conditions and the planned drill sequence with the supervising coach (guide: one new drill per jump).
- 1.3
- Brief the load on the working heading (set 90° off the stated jump-run heading) and the expected backslide direction.
- 1.4
- State the altitude for ending head-up work (breakoff guide: 5,500 ft minimum for head-up jumps) and the planned deployment altitude.
2. Prepare
- 2.1
- Complete a freefly-specific gear check: handles clear, BOC pouch condition, bridle covered, riser covers and pin flaps secure, closing loop tight, chest strap and harness tight, leg-strap bungee, secured jumpsuit, goggles, hard helmet.
- 2.2
- Verify audible altimeter(s) set and functioning. Two functioning audibles should be regarded as mandatory best practice before any solo freefly: an audible is a hidden safety-critical device that can fail silently, and where a group's breakoff gives you altitude redundancy, a soloist has none.
- 2.3
- Rehearse the neutral sit position on the ground: five holds with eyes open, five with eyes closed.
- 2.4
- Confirm exit order and separation with the load (freefly groups after belly groups on an into-wind jump run; separation by ground covered, not a fixed second-count).
3. Perform
- 3.1
- Exit presenting the back to the relative wind and fly the hill into a stable sit within 5 seconds (guide), using minimal inputs.
- 3.2
- Establish the neutral sit geometry: feet flat with even pressure, knees bent 90° at shoulder width, hips at 90° with torso perpendicular, arms out 90° for stability, heels aligned below knees, eyes to the horizon.
- 3.3
- Maintain heading ±45° (guide) for 10 seconds in the neutral sit.
- 3.4
- Check altitude between each manoeuvre or at least every 5 seconds.
- 3.5
- Move one position at a time through knee-fly → sit → stag, holding each position stable for 3 seconds with even, symmetrical pressure before moving on.
- 3.6
- Demonstrate the stand with a visual reference, in the tunnel, or in the sky with a coach or another jumper, returning to the neutral sit without corking. The reference matters: a stand can generate large horizontal movement, and a solo flyer has no way to detect the drift it creates.
- 3.7
- Perform a 360° turn in each direction, stopping within ±45° of the reference heading. A sit turn may be initiated from the arms, from the legs, or from both together; demonstrate at least two of the three, state which was used, and note that combining the two is generally the fastest way to turn.
- 3.8
- Perform the recovery flip drills: from the neutral sit, a front flip (legs tucked under the torso, air on the shins, tuck to a ball) and a back flip, each re-establishing a stable sit on heading (both flips per the APF Training Operations Manual Stage 2, which calls them loops).
- 3.9
- Execute the vertical recovery position immediately on any fallout or loss of control, resuming drills only once stable and on heading.
4. Complete
- 4.1
- Initiate breakoff at the briefed altitude (within −0/+300 ft), ending all head-up work.
- 4.2
- End the jump per the briefed protocol. On a coached/group jump: transition to back-fly, check the airspace above and behind, back-track, then roll to belly and track 90° from jump run, slowing to belly-fall speeds. On a solo consolidation jump: end the work without tracking, turn 90°, pause, recover to back-fly, slow down, then transition to a belly orientation, dissipating speed over at least 1,000 ft before deployment (FFP-F100 solo protocol). A soloist's movement risks are already the dominant hazard; movement at breakoff belongs in formation jumps, where it is practised and needed.
- 4.3
- Deploy at the planned altitude after clearing airspace.
- 4.4
- Fly the planned opening heading and canopy traffic plan.
5. Review
- 5.1
- Debrief the jump against the declared objective using video.
- 5.2
- Identify on video any instance of the three documented fault patterns, backsliding, fallout to back or belly, uncontrolled rotation, and name its body-position cause.
- 5.3
- Write the jump up in the logbook, naming the unit and skills assessed (e.g. "HU101 skills assessment"), with a reflection on the criteria results and one correction for the next jump.
Criteria in bold are safety-critical: they protect the flyer and everyone else on the load. A coach should not sign off the course while a bold criterion is Not Yet Satisfactory, however good the rest of the flying. Outside a course they are strongly recommended practice. Regulation stays with your federation and your drop zone.
Assessment conditions
- Sky jumps from 10,000 ft or higher (recommended).
- Video of every assessment jump, with the flyer identifiable: coach-flown, helmet-mounted or ground-to-air. Tunnel video covers tunnel work.
- Equipment: a visual altimeter, a working audible (two when the assessment jump is flown solo), a hard helmet, and freefly-suitable gear to the Freefly 100 standard.
- Conditions within the flyer’s cleared limits.
- The assessor is a freefly coach current in head-up coaching. An IBA-rated or equivalent tunnel instructor can sign off tunnel work.
- Each criterion is marked Satisfactory or Not Yet Satisfactory.
- As a guide, it takes about eight head-up jumps, alternating coached and solo, over at least two days within six months.
- Up to three practice jumps can be coached tunnel sessions of about 15 minutes, but the final two are sky jumps.
- If you already fly a sit, your coach can assess you on one sky jump, using your tunnel records, logbook or video.
Coaching priorities
Safety first, then fun, then learning. Hold the bold criteria to the standard above. Plan sessions to be enjoyable: flyers choose this expensive hobby, and enjoying it keeps them in the sport. Set one objective per jump, and end each debrief on something that went well, with one thing to improve.
Where this comes from
- APF Freefly and Angles Guide (APF006, August 2023): gear, planning and breakoff guides (§3), the vertical recovery position (§4.2), and the head-up position, exits, fall rate, turns, transitions and common problems (§6).
- Lesley Gale, “Sit Flying” (Skydive Mag, 2014): the neutral-sit geometry, heels below the knees, and turns driven by asymmetry.
- AXIS Flight School, Foundations of Flight columns in Parachutist: sit-fly fall-rate changes and the knee-fly, stag and stand ladder (Sharp, November 2017), and sit-fly turns (May 2018).
- Alethia Austin on practising freefly on your own (Skydive Mag, 2023): backsliding, briefing a backslide direction, and working 90° to jump run.
- Christy Frikken (Fury Coaching) on flying the hill with small inputs.
- Skydive University: the eyes-open, eyes-closed position rehearsal.
- Skydive Arizona, “Learning to Freefly”: the recovery ladder, and breaking off to back-fly and then belly.
- USPA Skydiver’s Information Manual 5-2: back-fly first, corking, drift and exit order.
- Dropzone.com forum reports of first-sit problems: flipping over backwards and spinning.
- Australian Skydiver Magazine: shoulder injuries in vertical transitions (issues 56 and 83), back-fly as the foundation for head-up (Jonathan Townsager, issue 73), and head-up conditioning (Tracey Lane, issue 79).
- The Freefly Project’s coaching doctrine: turns started from the arms, the legs or both, the solo protocols, and the head-up breakoff guides, which draw on Carlton’s GPS data on head-up breakoffs.
- APF Operational Regulations (V01-2026), APF Training Operations Manual (V01-2025) and British Skydiving Operations Manual 6.6, as jurisdictional context. IBA Static Level 3 as the tunnel evidence route.
Regulations where you jump
Regulations change, so each rule is given with its document edition, as context for where you jump.
- Australia (APF). Freefly training requires at least a Certificate Class B, freefly-suitable equipment and a course of instruction per the TOM (OR 9.2.1). Training descents are briefed by a Freefly Coach (TOM 5.7.3) under DZSO authorisation and CI supervision (OR 11.1.4–11.1.5).
- A Cert B holder may fly solo or 2-way freefly with DZSO approval (TOM 5.7.1). A functioning audible altimeter is mandatory on every freefly descent (OR 9.2.3).
- A Freefly Training Table Stage 1 sign-off, or an FFC-HU, covers this course and more.
- UK. Entry to FF1 training requires FS1 (British Skydiving Ops Manual 6.6.1–6.6.2). FF1 covers this course and more.
Acronym key. APF, Australian Parachute Federation. OR, the APF Operational Regulations. TOM, the APF Training Operations Manual. FFC, freefly crest. CI, chief instructor. DZSO, drop zone safety officer. IBA, International Bodyflight Association.
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The coaching priority order
Safety → Fun → Learning
Every course, briefing card and debrief on this site is built in this order. When two of them pull against each other on the day, keep safety ahead of fun, and fun ahead of getting through the course.
- 01 Safety
Safety comes first on every jump. Nothing further down this list is worth a safety risk.
- 02 Fun
Skydiving costs a lot. A jump you enjoy brings you back for the next coached one, and coached jumps are where the safety habits are practised.
- 03 Learning
The skills each course teaches. They stick best after a jump that was safe and fun, because you keep practising what you enjoy.