Freeflying refers to all activities that incorporate back, standing, head-down, or sitting freefall positions, including freestyle and skysurfing. These recommendations provide guidance for vertical freefall body positions, which are generally associated with high fall rates and rapid changes in relative speed. The diverse freefall speeds among jumpers engaged in different freefall activities affect separation between groups exiting on the same pass over the drop zone.
Before engaging in freeflying, you should hold a USPA license and have received freeflying instruction from a USPA instructional rating holder with extensive freeflying experience. Before freeflying, you should have demonstrated sufficient air skills, including:
- orienting to the line of flight of jump run
- maintaining consistent altitude awareness
- performing basic formation skydiving skills
- Proficiently performing basic backfly skills such as rotation and moving up, down, forward and backward prior to attempting head-up or head-down maneuvers
- tracking to achieve sufficient horizontal separation
Freeflying poses specific potential equipment problems. A premature opening at the speeds involved in freeflying could injure you severely or stress your equipment beyond the manufacturer’s limits.
To prevent premature deployment of either canopy, properly secure your gear. Deployment systems and operation handles need to remain secure when you are flying at high speeds and in various orientations. Therefore, equipment for freeflying should include a bottom-of-container mounted, throw-out pilot-chute pouch or pull-out pilot chute with tuck tabs. USPA recommends against using a leg-strap-mounted pilot chute, which is an extreme hazard, as is any exposed pilot-chute bridle. Maintain and properly size your closing loops and ensure your pin protection flap and riser covers are in good shape and stay secure during freefall. Connect leg straps with a bungee to keep them from sliding to your knees while in a head-up freefall position or making transitions. Tightly stow excess leg and chest strap material.
USPA recommends freeflyers use an AAD and an RSL with a MARD due to the increased potential for collisions and loss of altitude awareness.
When using skysurfing boards, use a board-release system that you can activate with either hand without bending at the waist.
Personal accessories for freeflying should include:
- audible altimeter (two are recommended)
- visual altimeter
- hard helmet
- clothing or jumpsuit that will remain in place during different orientations of freefall and will not obscure or obstruct deployment or emergency handles or altimeters
Freeflying has many things in common with face-to-earth formation skydiving. A beginner will develop awareness and progress much faster and more proficiently with a coach. Novices should not jump with each other until receiving basic training in freeflying and demonstrating the ability to maintain a vertical axis and control movement up, down, forward and backward in a head-up position.
Prior to jumping with larger groups, progress should follow the same model as for the freefall and canopy formation disciplines: 2-way formations of novice and coach to develop exit, body position, docking, transition, and breakoff skills.
Inadvertently transitioning from a fast-falling body position to a slower, face-to-earth position is known as “corking” and results in rapid deceleration, typically from 175 mph to 120 mph. This could potentially lead to a high-speed freefall collision. To freefly safely in a group, you should be able to consistently remain in a vertical position at all times and remain clear of other freeflyers’ airspace. During breakoff, clear airspace above, below, and behind.
When learning freeflying from a belly-to-earth background, it can be easy to lose altitude awareness. From 13,000 feet, a belly-to-earth jump is approximately 60 seconds while the freefall time of a freefly jump may be as short as 40 seconds. Also, the vertical freefall body positions can make visual altimeters difficult to see. Depending on the helmet used, audible altimeters may also be hard to hear with the increased wind speed of the vertical position. As with any other skydiving discipline, participants must be diligent in maintaining altitude awareness.
Novice freeflyers often drift in various directions in freefall. Prior to each jump, freeflyers should note jump run as well as landmarks perpendicular to jump run in order to set up facing off the line of flight (90 degrees to jump run). This is especially important for solo freeflyers. An experienced coach can identify whether a participant is drifting and provide guidance. Experienced freeflyers must be aware of drifting when coaching or performing dives involving horizontal movement (see Chapter 5-10, Movement Jumps).
Freeflyers must consider wind drift, as well as their drift from body position, to provide adequate separation between groups. As a general rule, faster-falling groups should exit the aircraft after slower-falling groups. Vertical freefall groups should stay upwind to allow clear canopy airspace for groups exiting prior.
Important planning considerations to address these hazards include:
- Get a briefing from an instructor experienced in freeflying.
- Consider getting a coach and mentor early in your progression.
- Ensure your equipment is “freefly friendly.”
- Utilize both visual and audible altimeters.
- Keep the size of the groups small until proficient.
- Plan higher breakoffs than usual.
- Gradually transition from a fast fall-rate to tracking position for separation in case a skydiver is above the formation in a vertical position
- Avoid maneuvers near breakoff that increase separation and level changes from the group.
- Not only gain separation from other jumpers, but also slow down after breakoff to ensure normal freefall speeds for deployment.