Angles 301 — Plan an angle jump

Application

The planning half of learning to lead. The candidate plans and briefs the whole angle jump, the day’s picture, the drawn flight path, the breakoff design, the load coordination, the briefing and the walk-through, under the mentorship of a coach. Then the candidate flies belly in a slot beside the coach, observing the jump they planned, led by the coach, and the debrief runs the video against the plan.

One course, one job: this card is the plan. Leading the jump is FFP-AN302.

The split follows how the job actually distributes: most of leading happens before boarding, experienced leaders put 50–80% of the job in the planning, navigation and briefing. This unit is that 50–80%, made assessable on its own.

The observation slot is the teaching device: flying beside the leader, the candidate sees the leader’s vantage, the sight picture, the turn timing against the keyed references, the group spread out behind, without carrying the lead, and then debriefs their own plan against what the sky did to it.

Two doctrine points frame the whole angles track and are restated here because this unit starts producing the people who carry them:

• Angles are led from the belly only, never from the back. The leader must see the ground, the references and the group.

  • Back-flying in an angle group is a follower skill flown in slot, not a leading position.
  • APF006 §5.12, “the lead flyer must always fly belly to earth”; the project’s coaching doctrine.

• Flyers learn angles with a trained leader, not by themselves. This curriculum does not encourage solo angle or movement jumps at any level.

  • Every unit below this one assumes a trained or approved leader on the jump.
  • Structured, led movement jumps are safer than unstructured beginner angle groups, “otherwise the alternative’s not that great either” (Spaceland and Skydive Arizona approved-leader models).

Applies to flyers with endorsement-standard angle competence in both belly and back orientations and a substantial follower history, including time spent deliberately improving awareness on jumps they were not leading.

• Environment: sky for the observation jumps.
• The planning and defence drills are ground work that costs nothing on a weather day. Head-up movement, big-way angles and mixed-orientation angles sit above this unit (FFP-AN302’s head-up-movement thread; FFP-AN401; FFP-AN402).

Pre-requisite units

FFP-F100, FFP-AN101, FFP-AN201, FFP-AN202 (with both belly and back orientations passed, the AN 202-style sign-off is orientation-specific). Recommended entry posture: a broad follower history across patterns, slots and leaders, because “it’s easier to jump with a group where everybody knows what they’re doing, they can cover for your mistakes” and the inverse is what a new leader faces.

RPL route for experienced entrants: see the RPL evidence set below.

Elements and performance criteria

1. Plan the jump

1.1

Build the day's picture from the pattern ingredients: winds in all three layers (freefall, canopy, landing, with units checked), jump run (direction, offset, zero point, green light, type), expected drift, other groups on the load, DZ rules and terrain, and the group itself, including yourself and your experience with today's specific conditions (APF006 §5.14).

1.2

Design a flight path that meets the two governing objectives, avoid every other group's line of flight, and bring the whole group back to the landing area, drawn on a DZ map with turns keyed to ground references, and an opening area planned for the whole group: the path ends in a cone of separating jumpers, not a point. Plan wind drift before intentional movement, total displacement is wind drift plus intentional movement. Work out the drift for the day's uppers and freefall time first, and visualise it on the DZ board, before adding any planned movement footprint: drift acts on every group whether it moves or not, and differs by discipline (a belly group drifts more than an angle group, which drifts more than a faster freefly group), so a lane drawn without the drift underneath it is drawn in the wrong place (USPA SIM 5-10.F; APF006 §3.2; the project's coaching doctrine movement-jump planning doctrine).

1.3

Choose the simplest pattern that does the job, sized to the least experienced flyer and to the leader's leading experience, straight 90 and 45-45 are the developing leader's patterns; complex patterns trade accuracy for manoeuvrability and are "really easy on paper but not so easy to fly" (Folgerts, one turn is better and safer).

1.4

Screen every participant, including any camera flyer, by evidence, not self-report: proximity footage or a docked-on-your-leader history, a demonstrated body position, a hand-demonstration of levels; treat unproven flyers as lower-skilled until seen ("you don't know what you don't know", self-reported speed and "biggest jump" are worthless screens) (an unbriefed camera flyer is a participant too).

1.5

Design the breakoff on the ground, never in the air: breakoff altitude (guides, 5,000 ft up to a 4-way, 5,500 ft for 5 or more; most modern groups brief 5,500 ft regardless of size; for a head-up angle group raise the floor, minimum 6,000 ft, and 6,500 ft for a larger group, the recommended FFP standard for head-up angle work, because a head-up breakoff buys almost no separation and rotating to head-first costs altitude; see the head-up-angle breakoff item in Knowledge evidence), the last turn no lower than ~7,000 ft so the group settles onto one heading before separating ("we definitely don't want to break off in a turn, that's where the collisions happen"), a peel-off fan away from jump run with no flyer turning more than ~90° and nobody, ever, turning 180° back toward the jump run, an explicit breakoff assignment for anyone slotted above the leader, and separation complete at least 1,000 ft above the highest planned deployment. Breakoff is the trigger point for movement-jump collisions; it is designed, briefed and walked, not improvised (the project's coaching doctrine breakoff standards;, the Australian "to the basement" incidents; APF006 §5.10;.

1.6

Prepare a conditional plan B that is simpler than plan A and changes only what must change (same exit, same slots, same breakoff where possible), plus the left-behind and lost-flyer protocol, the unexpected is the one thing a leader can expect ("you have to change what you have to change, but don't change what you don't have to change";, pre-briefed conditional plans; APF006 §4.3).

1.7

Choose the group's slot in the exit order as a navigation tool, wind cone, offset side, pattern shape, other groups, rather than by habit (movement groups do not have to exit first), and check whether the plan survives a changed jump run. Draw each lane parallel to jump run with a clear intent arrow, and where two movement groups share the load, plan different airspace, by default opposite directions. Worked example of the strong-upper-wind variant: when the upper wind is strong enough that both groups must fly the same way (toward the landward side), split the airspace into sectors instead, one group to one side of the run, the other to the other, with an explicit separation buffer of at least one board-grid square between them, so two same-direction lanes never converge (Burke, an angle group must not claim a tracking group's exit priority; USPA SIM 5-10.E; the project's coaching doctrine movement-jump planning doctrine).

2. Brief and prepare the load

2.1

Declare the movement jump to manifest and the pilot, and coordinate patterns with every other movement group on the load before boarding, draw the pattern where the next group can see it (map or flight-planning board), agree lanes or walls, and count novice solo freeflyers as a moving group that owns the corridor perpendicular to jump run, both sides. Best practice on the DZ board is to draw the group's planned flight path first, before the detail: a lane and intent arrow already on the board while everyone is dirt-diving lets the other groups and the load master read each movement group's intentions at a glance, which is what removes the last-minute coordination scramble; confirm the exit order and aircraft plan with the load master as part of this (Spaceland flight-board practice; USPA SIM 5-10.E; the project's coaching doctrine movement-jump planning doctrine).

2.2

Deliver the briefing early (the 20-minute call, rehearsed at the 10, a rushed brief produces rushed jumpers), structured dry-data-first: jump run, the three wind layers chewed into digestible form, the drawn plan, exit order; then approach doctrine (quadrant → level → close), heading discipline, the left-behind protocol, the breakoff walk-through, and after-opening instructions, all phrased as what TO do, never only what not to do. As the FFP briefing minimum, the brief must define six planning outputs for the jump: direction (lane or sector), distance (in grid squares or nautical miles), the breakoff and separation plan, the opening area, the initial canopy direction, and plan B, a movement jump is not briefed until all six are stated (APF006 §5.14; the project's coaching doctrine movement-jump planning doctrine).

2.3

Walk the dive with the group, walking backwards where it simulates real body inputs, and spend more time on the getting-together and breakoff phases than on the rest of the walk combined.

2.4

Confirm before boarding that every participant can point out the jump-run direction and the briefed ground references, and that gear is checked: audible heard functioning and set to the briefed profile, visual altimeter, movement-suitable equipment (APF006 §5.14, §3.1; the project's coaching doctrine audible check protocol;, dirt-dive your audible settings).

2.5

Brief the high-and-behind case as a mandatory item: a jumper who ends up high and behind the group must never chase it. Brief the mindset plainly, the jump is done; accept it, do not try to catch back up (chasing compresses vertical separation and raises closing speed at breakoff). Instead slow the fall rate, stay high and behind, keep visual contact with the group, and deploy at the briefed altitude when the group breaks off (the project's coaching doctrine movement-jump contingency doctrine;, break off at the group's timing, not its altitude; APF006 §3.3).

2.6

Run the ground organisation to the boarding point: gather the group by the aircraft in reverse exit order before boarding, with the climb-out, exit and initial navigation visualised before the door, and confirm with the leader that the plan-B call stays available until the moment the door opens. Nobody in the group opens the door; door timing belongs to the aircraft crew (the project's coaching doctrine movement-jump contingency doctrine; APF006 §5.14, §3.1).

3. Observe the lead

3.1

Fly belly in the briefed observation slot beside the leader, holding level and slot, never between the leader and the group, and never inside the group's briefed lanes or fan. The observation slot is a working slot: it is screened, briefed and flown to the same standard as every other slot on the jump.

3.2

Track the jump against the plan in the air: the turns against the keyed ground references, the drift under the group, the group's state at each phase, and how the leader applies the in-air priority order (Aviate → Navigate → Communicate, flown as leading skill in FFP-AN302). Watch the leader's sight picture: where they look, when they turn, what they do when the group spreads.

3.3

Fly the briefed breakoff exactly as planned for the observation slot, peel at the briefed altitude and angle, clear airspace in all directions, and deploy at the planned altitude over the planned area (APF006 §5.10, §3.3; the project's coaching doctrine breakoff standards).

4. Review the plan

4.1

Debrief with the group to the protocol: participants speak first; watch the whole video once through without stopping; safety points first, then positives, then improvements.

4.2

Compare planned versus flown: draw what you think the group flew, and, if a GPS trace is available, compare all three pictures (the plan, your perception, the trace), remembering the trace includes drift. The gaps are the navigation curriculum for the next plan.

4.3

Log the jump and bank what the day taught, flags you missed, conditions you now have experience with, what the leader did that the plan never captured, into the next plan.

Bold criteria are safety-critical: non-compensable (any Not Yet Satisfactory on a bold criterion = unit Not Yet Competent, regardless of planning or briefing quality).

Foundation skills

• Briefing and debriefing communication (clear, concise, positive-phrased, scaled to the group).
• Numeracy, winds-aloft interpretation, unit conversion (knots/mph/m/s), drift arithmetic, altitude and “rope” budgeting.
• Map reading and spatial planning at two reference scales (detail within ~1–2 miles, far references for orientation).
• Negotiation with manifest, pilots, loadmasters and other group leaders (precision language: “0.5 before” what?).
• Honest self-assessment without ego, reading the flags and simplifying or standing the plan down as they stack.

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

• Ability evidenced across at least 4 complete plan → brief → observe → debrief cycles, each planned and briefed by the candidate under coach mentorship and flown with the coach leading: across at least two different days with different winds-aloft pictures and at least two different jump-run situations.
• including at least 2 consecutive cycles meeting all planning and briefing criteria without correction from the mentoring coach.
• Within a recommended 6-month currency window.

Ground evidence alongside the jumps: flight plans drawn and defended for varied scenarios, real wind reports, different jump-run types, multiple groups on the load, assessed on the reasoning, not the drawing (“it’s more about being able to defend your jump run than drawing the perfect jump run”,). This is a bad-weather-day drill that costs nothing.

Tunnel time cannot substitute for any of this unit’s evidence, planning, briefing and navigation are sky-and-ground skills.

Knowledge evidence

• The leader’s umbrella responsibility and the flags framework. State the job in one line, bring everybody safely to the ground, preferably to the landing area, and explain how incidents come from an accumulation of small factors rather than one big one.
  • Name the common flags and how a planner simplifies or stands down as they stack, “there is no flag that’s too small, because it’s the small ones that are going to get you”.
  • Strong or changing winds, curved or crosswind jump runs, multiple movement groups, big belly groups on windy days, group size vs skill, your own condition-specific inexperience.
• The pattern ingredients. Interpret a winds-aloft report into a plan.
  • Explain jump-run anatomy, direction, offset, zero point, green light, and the reporting conventions that trap visitors.
  • Explain drift mechanics, belly groups drift more because they are in freefall longer, not because of orientation, and the exit-order logic that follows (APF006 §3.2).
  • Direction reported as coming-from.
  • Units checked.
  • Two reports cross-checked on marginal days.
  • Pilot, tandems and previous loads as live calibration.
  • Some DZs report the aircraft heading, others the drop line over the ground, which matters on crosswind runs.
  • Big before small; on windy days let the belly groups out first, “if there’s a doubt, there’s no doubt”; a movement group can sit anywhere in the order that suits its pattern.
• The rope model. Explain how steepness and speed set the path length available (steep/slow = less rope, flat/fast = more), how group size and the lowest skill level dictate the rope you get and the pattern complexity you may fly (more people → simplify: fewer turns, slightly flatter with speed, never flat-and-slow), and how winds and jump run dictate where that rope is laid on the terrain.
• The pattern taxonomy, graded. Describe the advantages, disadvantages and use-cases of the straight 90, 45-45 and 45-90.
  • State the universal rules: finish perpendicular to or away from jump run, never plan a final leg pointing back at it, last turn started by ~7,000–7,500 ft, and any jump-run crossing complete by ~10,000 ft ( §12; §2).
  • And, at awareness level, the zigzag, back-trail and 270 as advanced-leader patterns, “people start leading the 270 way before they should”.
• Multiple groups on the load. Explain lane coordination: opposite sides first.
  • Quadrants and interleaved exits when a side must be shared.
  • Wide “walls”/no-man’s-land buffers.
  • Declared opening points over named landmarks.
  • Roughly two movement groups per load as the working guide.
  • A separation margin of at least twice the straight-down distance when flying parallel to another group’s airspace.
  • And why novice solo freeflyers are counted as a moving group that doesn’t know it’s moving, with the “responsible adult on the load” answer of teaching, not mocking.
  • §3; USPA SIM 4-7.D; the project’s coaching doctrine, no-solo-angles doctrine: the corridor problem is exactly why learners belong with trained leaders.
• Planning and briefing a movement jump, the project’s doctrine. State the wind-drift-first rule: total displacement is wind drift plus intentional movement, so drift is worked out and visualised on the DZ board before any movement footprint is added, and it differs by discipline (belly drifts more than an angle group, which drifts more than a faster freefly group).
  • Explain the lane and sector conventions: lanes drawn parallel to jump run with a clear intent arrow.
  • Two movement groups planning different airspace, opposite directions by default.
  • And the strong-upper-wind variant, where both groups fly the same way and the airspace is split into sectors with an explicit separation buffer instead.
  • State the DZ-board best practice, draw the flight path first, so the other groups and the load master can read each group’s intent during the dirt dives, and the six mandatory planning outputs that are the FFP briefing minimum: direction, distance, breakoff and separation plan, opening area, initial canopy direction, and plan B.
  • State plan B as a straight-down profile.
  • Explain the ground organisation to the boarding point: assemble in reverse exit order before boarding, visualise climb-out, exit and initial navigation before the door, keep the plan-B call available until the door opens, and never open the door, that timing belongs to the aircraft crew.
  • No intentional horizontal movement, hold the group’s competent orientation, standard breakoff and deployment altitudes.
  • The project’s coaching doctrine movement-jump planning doctrine.
  • The project’s coaching doctrine movement-jump contingency doctrine.
  • APF006 §3.2, §5.14.
  • USPA SIM 5-10.E.
• The high-and-behind case. Explain the mandatory high-and-behind brief for the jumper who ends up above and behind the group: never chase, the jump is done, because chasing compresses vertical separation and raises closing speed at breakoff.
  • Instead slow the fall rate, stay high and behind, hold visual contact, and deploy at the briefed altitude when the group breaks off, “we break off at the group’s timing, not the group’s altitude” (the project’s coaching doctrine movement-jump contingency doctrine; APF006 §3.3).
• Breakoff design and its geometry. State the breakoff-altitude guides and the peel-off fan rules.
  • Explain the intermediate-group ceiling of about six from the breakoff math (~30° of fan per flyer against a 5–7-second reaction window).
  • Explain the god-slot hazard, anyone above the leader gets an explicit breakoff assignment, because the Australian incident record shows what happens when they chase the leader’s line “to the basement”.
  • And explain deployment discipline, the airspace is cleared visually before deploying, always assuming somebody is there, because “pulling to clear airspace” is rejected doctrine: deploying dumps fabric into the airspace, it does not clear it (the project’s coaching doctrine breakoff standards; APF006 §5.10, §3.3).
  • 5,000 ft up to a 4-way.
  • 5,500 ft for 5-way and above.
  • Most modern jumpers brief 5,500 ft regardless, and, for a head-up angle group, the raised FFP floor of a minimum 6,000 ft, 6,500 ft for a larger group, per the head-up-angle breakoff item below.
  • Leader straight and fast.
  • Fan ≤90° away from jump run.
  • Look before turning.
  • Turn flat from the hips.
  • Nobody ever turns 180° toward the jump run.
• Breakoff orientation as briefing knowledge. Apply the Carlton GPS evidence when planning for groups of six or more: head-up cruises ≈140 mph vertical / 40 mph horizontal against head-down ≈135/90 (slow) to ≈120/105 (fast).
  • Modelled 6-way separations of 268 ft (≈1.4 s) on a slow head-up breakoff and 392 ft (≈2.7 s) on a fast one, versus 690–1,165 ft head-first.
  • No glide-ratio gain moving into a head-up breakoff.
  • And a measured 1,500–2,000 ft lag before horizontal speed builds after transitioning, hence the head-first transition must be initiated by ~6,500–7,000 ft, using a “team layout” (front/back layouts around a centre point that stay on the line of flight) rather than the “in-place layout” Carlton names as the worst option.
  • On these figures Carlton calls a head-up breakoff in six or more “unacceptable” and even five “pushing it” (Carlton; §5).
• Head-up angle breakoff, the recommended FFP standard (supersedes the general freefly ladder for head-up angle groups). For head-up angle groups the recommended breakoff floor is raised above the general freefly numbers because a head-up breakoff buys almost no separation and rotating to head-first costs altitude: minimum 6,000 ft breakoff for a head-up angle group, and 6,500 ft for a larger group.
  • This is consistent with, and sets the applied floor for, Carlton’s recommendation to be head-first by ~6,500–7,000 ft in groups of six or more: brief a head-up angle group to break off by 6,000 ft (6,500 ft for larger groups) so that the flyer is already head-first and tracking, not still head-up, through Carlton’s window.
  • The general freefly ladder (5,000 ft up to a 4-way, 5,500 ft for 5-way and larger) still applies to non-angle contexts and to belly-lead angle groups.
  • The raised 6,000/6,500 ft floor applies specifically to head-up angle work.
  • This corroborates and post-dates an earlier Australian norm: by 2015 the period practice was already to raise the head-up-angle track-off to 5,500 ft-plus in groups and to turn and clear airspace in the head-up orientation first before transitioning to a normal track (ASM 78 pp.11–12; ASM 80 p.54), the same mechanism (use the head-up orientation to clear before going head-first), which the current 6,000/6,500 ft standard extends.
• Feedback and the three-picture debrief. Explain why a plan cannot be assessed from feel alone, no trail in the sky, references shrink and grow with altitude, and how the three-picture debrief (plan → perceived → flown) closes the loop.
  • If a GPS or flight computer is available, use it: it is the most direct feedback a developing planner can get, and it shortens the learning loop dramatically.
  • GPS speed/glide data is optional information, not a gate (USPA SIM 5-10.C lists GPS as a recommended accessory).

Assessment conditions

Assessment observes the complete cycle: the day’s picture and drawn plan, the coordination with manifest/pilot/other groups, the briefing and walk-through, the observation jump (candidate flying the observation slot beside the coach-leader), and the plan-versus-flown debrief. Sky jumps from a recommended 10,000 ft minimum; a real group of at least 3 flyers of appropriate experience, led by the mentoring coach.

• Evidence: the candidate’s drawn and photographed flight plans.
• The briefing observed live (or recorded).
• The candidate’s talk-through of the plan’s reasoning, the flags counted, the pattern chosen and why.
• Jump footage from the observation slot.
• A GPS trace where available for the plan-versus-flown comparison.

Required equipment: visual altimeter, functioning audible set to the briefed profile, movement-suitable gear; AAD recommended. Conditions within every participant’s cleared limits. Assessor: an experienced movement-jump leader or freefly coach current in leading movement jumps, using the published FFP-AN301 checklist (Satisfactory / Not Yet Satisfactory per criterion; unit result Competent / Not Yet Competent).

Coaching priorities

Deliver in the project’s priority order: Safety → Fun → Learning (curriculum Part A0). The plan is where the safety is manufactured, the non-compensable criteria here protect groups the candidate will one day lead.

The fun is real too: a well-made plan is what lets a group relax and enjoy the sky (“when was the last time you skydived and actually took a minute to be like, I’m skydiving, I’m in the sky?”,), and the observation jump should be a genuinely great skydive, not a chore. Debriefs end on a win with one improvement focus for the next plan.

RPL evidence set

For experienced movement-jump planners and leaders entering at level:

• Logbook evidencing a substantial tracking/angles history (300+ tracking/angles jumps is a common contextual benchmark, not a gate).
• A portfolio of drawn flight plans with talk-throughs, or an existing leader approval under a published DZ scheme (which evidences the planning standard implicitly).
• A reference from a drop zone safety officer, S&TA, chief instructor or equivalent who has seen the candidate plan and brief.
• Plus one full challenge cycle (plan → brief → observe or lead → debrief) against the complete FFP-AN301 checklist. Safety-critical criteria are always assessed live, never credited from history alone.
• A candidate who passes FFP-AN302 by RPL (a real lead, assessed) has evidenced this unit too, a real lead evidences the plan behind it.

Sources