Head-Up 401 — Fly head-up big-ways

Application

• Covers flying an assigned slot in engineered head-up formations of around 8-way and larger (a guide, above the FFP-HU301 group scope) at organised big-way camps, events and record attempts: the build method proven on the first Australian head-up records (15-way, then 16-way, Skydive Oz Moruya, 2019), a linked 3–4-way base launched from inside the aircraft, divers transitioning to head-up on level before approaching.
• Designated break-ins expanding the base, and wacker lines built off it (a “wacker” is an outer-ring flyer who docks last on the outside of a big-way round, a US big-way term used in the ASM coverage of the Australian records; ASM 96 pp.40–41).

Applies to flyers competent in head-up group flying who are ready to work inside someone else’s engineering.

Environment: sky; tunnel head-up formation work (an unofficial 17-way indoor HU formation has been built, ASM 96 p.19) is preparation and calibration only.

Supervision/scaffold: all jumps fly under a big-way organiser within a coached event, scaffold stage: organiser-assigned simple slot → trusted across role families (base, diver/break-in, wacker) without slot-level supervision. This is a Mastery-tier unit: there is no sign-off. Completion is a milestone recognising big-way readiness, it is not a permission, and it does not authorise any jump.

Pre-requisite units

FFP-HU202 (crest-standard head-up flying), FFP-HU301 (fly head-up in groups). RPL route for the pre-requisites: logbook plus video of head-up group jumps at HU 301 standard (e.g., 4–6-way builds with linked exits) verified by a freefly coach.

Elements and performance criteria

Criteria 3.1–3.5 are role-conditional (base / diver / break-in / wacker); evidence should cover at least two role families (see Performance evidence), which families, and whether base experience is essential, stays at the organiser’s and coach’s discretion, since base slots are usually organiser-picked.

1. Plan the jump

1.1

Confirm own slot, the dive order and the build sequence from the organiser's engineering brief.

1.2

State own approach lane, level reference and grip plan for the slot.

1.3

State the staged breakoff plan, own wave, its altitude and assigned radial, and the deployment altitude (guides: waves elevated with group size, e.g., first wave ≥6,000 ft and open by 4,500 ft, with ≥1,000 ft from own breakoff to deployment; cf. the elevated floors used for coached freefly display groups, ASM 96 p.15). Head-up big-way separation planning needs to be more conservative than head-down: gaining lateral separation from a head-up breakoff is inefficient, so at 10-way and larger the breakoff plan is the organiser's risk decision, higher floors are worth considering.

1.4

State the funnel and abort plans: recovery orientation (back-fly), clearing direction off the formation's line, and the no-re-approach rule below the briefed floor.

1.5

Evaluate own currency and readiness against the slot's demands, standing down when they are not met ("know when to say no", Rook Nelson's Golden Rules, ASM 110 p.88).

2. Prepare

2.1

Rehearse the climbout, exit count and full build in the group dirt dive at the organiser's tempo.

2.2

Complete a freefly-specific gear check: pin and handle protection for the gripped exit and aircraft stack-up, genuinely tight BOC (premature pilot-chute deployment is a documented head-up hazard, ASM 96 p.33), two audibles set to the briefed altitudes, AAD on.

2.3

Move through the aircraft lineup and climbout without rig, pin or handle contact on the door or airframe (dislodged handles and extracted pins on gripped freefly exits and stack-ups are the dominant incident class in the corpus, ASM 109 p.68; ASM 110 p.87; ASM 111 p.74).

3. Perform

3.1

Launch the linked base from inside the aircraft, door kept clear for floaters, stabilising grips, heading and fall rate through the hill (base slots; ASM 96 pp.40–41).

3.2

Dive to the formation, stopping outside it on level with the base (divers).

3.3

Transition to head-up on level, arresting all closure before starting the approach (divers; the 2019 record method, "transitioning on level to head up before building", ASM 96 pp.40–41).

3.4

Break into the base without disturbing its heading, level or fall rate (designated break-ins).

3.5

Build the wacker line off the base, matching the line's level and radial spacing (wacker slots).

3.6

Take grips only after a pause in the slot with closure arrested, without loading the formation ("everyone making sure they paused before picking up the grips", ASM 96 pp.40–41).

3.7

Hold the slot quietly, level within a head height, grips soft, inputs minimal, while monitoring the build and the traffic in own sector until the key or breakoff.

3.8

Fly the briefed abort on any instability or orientation loss: establishing back-fly, clearing off the formation's line, and not re-approaching (corking decelerates a flyer from ~175+ mph to ~120 mph, a collision hazard for anyone above the formation).

4. Complete

4.1

Initiate breakoff with own wave at the briefed altitude (within −0/+300 ft), turning onto the assigned radial.

4.2

Track the assigned radial, holding separation from adjacent trackers until clear of all traffic.

4.3

Transition to belly, washing off vertical speed and checking airspace before deployment (deployment at freefly speeds drives the hard-opening/line-twist incident class, ASM 109 p.69).

4.4

Deploy at the planned altitude, never above the formation or another group (ASM 112 p.88).

4.5

Fly the briefed canopy traffic plan back to the holding area.

5. Review

5.1

Debrief own jump against the per-jumper report card covering the 11 briefed areas of the jump, climbouts, quietness, presentation and breakoff among them; full card under Assessment conditions, comparing self-assessment against the organiser's card (Malchiodi debrief instrument, 2019 Australian HU record, ASM 96 pp.40–41).

5.2

Analyse the formation video to locate own slot's contribution to the build, or the cause of any failure to build.

5.3

Identify one correction to carry into the next attempt's plan.

5.4

Log the jump with a written reflection naming the unit, the slot flown and the outcome (e.g., "FFP-HU401, diver slot, 12-way, build held to breakoff"), retaining the report card as evidence, the report-card cycle only compounds if it lands in the logbook.

Bold criteria are safety-critical: within FFP coached assessment they are treated as non-compensable (any Not Yet Satisfactory = unit Not Yet Competent). That weight is a strongly recommended best-practice standard, not a regulation, each bold item traces to a documented incident class or collision hazard in the corpus.

Foundation skills

• Organisational communication (working inside an engineering brief; sector and line coordination).
• Altitude and staged-breakoff numeracy across waves and radials.
• Giving and receiving structured written feedback (the report card cycle).
• Self-management across long holds, weather days and repeated attempts.
• Quiet-body discipline under performance pressure.

Performance evidence (suggested sufficiency — adjust locally)

• Ability evidenced across a suggested 12 coached head-up formation jumps at around 8-way or larger (a guide, scale with the local scene’s group sizes), across at least two organised events or camps and at least two role families (e.g., base plus diver or wacker), including at least 3 consecutive jumps on which the candidate’s slot built and held to breakoff without organiser intervention.
• With a completed 11-area report card on file for every assessed jump, within a recommended 12-month currency window.

The jump count is a guide to how long readiness typically takes, not a gate, competency decides, not numbers, and camps and weather will stretch the calendar. Tunnel head-up formation time may evidence quietness and presentation development but substitutes for no assessment jump, it exercises no climbout, hill, altitude or breakoff (cf. altitude-awareness decay after tunnel blocks, ASM 96 p.33).

Knowledge evidence

• Design an engineering plan for a 12-way head-up formation, base size and launch method, diver order, break-in designation, wacker lines, staged breakoff.
• Justify the inside-launched base against a floating launch.
  • Door kept clear for floaters; the documented difficulty of timing linked head-up launches, “It’s amazing how difficult it can be to launch a 4-way head-up exit, even with highly experienced people”, ASM 96 pp.40–41.
• Explain why divers transition to head-up on level before approaching, and why every approach pauses before grips.
• Analyse formation video to diagnose a slow build or funnel and attribute the cause (climbout timing, presentation, level error, tension through grips).
• Evaluate own report cards across a camp and identify the trend area to train next.
• Explain staged breakoff design for large head-up groups (waves, radials, elevated altitudes, breakoff-to-deployment margin), the corking/speed-differential hazard that drives it, and why head-up separation planning must be more conservative than head-down, a head-up breakoff generates less power and less track efficiency, and altitude is spent rotating to a head-down or belly track.
• Which is why 10-way-and-larger breakoff plans are an organiser risk decision with higher floors worth considering.
  • Carlton’s GPS data, skydivemag 2026: ~268 ft of separation in 1.4 s slow head-up and ~392 ft in 2.7 s fast head-up versus 690–1,165 ft head-first in a 6-way, angle-flying community-sources research §5.
• State the funnel/abort protocol and the head-up deployment doctrine, transition to belly and wash off vertical speed before deploying, never above the formation or another group (head-up break-off as a distinct taught skill; ASM 109 p.69; ASM 112 p.88).
  • Back-fly recovery, clearing off the formation’s line, no re-approach below the briefed floor.
• Explain, as dated context, why the modern head-up big-way airspace check is a belly transition rather than a pre-opening barrel roll: the barrel-roll airspace check was once stated as prescriptive freefly SOP in this scene, and it remains a valid smaller-group technique, but at big-way scale a barrel roll at deployment altitude goes belly-up and blind-below and costs altitude.
• So a clean back-to-belly transition that keeps eyes on the airspace throughout is preferred (parallels the argued organiser-scale divergence in FFP-AN401 §4.3).
  • A Moruya DZ safety briefing of the era, “For freeflyers, doing a barrel roll is a good technique to check airspace”, ASM 56 pp.61–65, Jules McConnel.
• Explain big-way freefly gear doctrine (two audibles, genuinely tight BOC, handle and pin protection on gripped exits and stack-ups, ASM 96 p.33; ASM 109 p.68).

Assessment conditions

Assessment on genuine head-up formation jumps of around 8-way or larger at an organised, coached event, a real group is required; tunnel evidence is preparatory only. Sky jumps from a recommended 13,000 ft minimum (higher with group size, at organiser discretion).

Video: a dedicated camera flyer above the formation plus candidate-identifiable footage, the report-card cycle and build diagnosis depend on it, so assessment without it is guesswork. Equipment (best practice treated as standard at organised big-way events): visual altimeter, two functioning audibles, AAD, freefly-suitable gear with a genuinely tight BOC. Conditions within the event’s briefed limits.

Assessor: an experienced head-up big-way organiser or freefly coach current in head-up big-way coaching, using the published FFP-HU401 checklist and the 11-area report card, each criterion marked Satisfactory / Not Yet Satisfactory.

• The 11 report-card areas, in jump order: climbouts.

• Exit timing.

• Approach discipline.

• Level control.

• Slot fidelity.

• Dock quality.

• Quietness.

• Presentation.

• Breakoff (initiation, own wave, altitude, radial).

• Breakoff execution (track, separation, transition, deployment).

• Canopy pattern.

• *Provenance (researched 2026-07-27): the original Malchiodi card was never published, ASM 96 (Hopwood, pp.40–41) gives only four example areas (“covering things like climbouts, quietness, presentation and breakoff”). The other seven are an FFP reconstruction, evidence-based against the same article’s phase-by-phase account of the Moruya record coaching plus published big-way assessment decompositions:

• Brown’s Big-Way Basics.

• Cooper-Jensen’s Big-way Bites.

• 2014 52-way HUWR debrief language.

• The original card exists on paper with the 17 record participants, several Moruya-local (Scott Hiscoe, Ben Cuttler, Jacob Mulder, Kyle Chick), or via Kim Hopwood/Focus or Malchiodi, and supersedes this reconstruction if obtained.* Completion is recorded as a Mastery milestone only: it is not a sign-off, confers no privilege, and is not a permission to jump in, organise or join any formation..

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 a flown abort or a stand-down under criterion 1.5 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 run the report-card cycle without blame: safety points first, then celebrate what worked, then one improvement focus carried into the next attempt.

RPL evidence set

Logbook plus video of head-up formation jumps at around 8-way or larger (big-way camps, events or record attempts, e.g., state or national head-up record participation); organiser references or per-jumper report cards from a recognised big-way event; or a challenge assessment across one big-way camp (a suggested minimum of 4 jumps) against the full criteria with a qualifying assessor.

Sources