AFP:
Skydive Greene County uses an Advance Freefall Progression training method. In their training program your first 4 skydives are tandem skydives in which you are attached to a highly skilled instructor who is there to give you instant feedback on your skydive and under canopy.

~The student’s first tandem is designed to be an introduction to freefall and a basic course in how to fly and land a parachute. The training for this level covers basic freefall body positions and basic canopy flying skills.
~A Level 2 student is equipped with their own altimeter and is taught how to read it. They are also taught the correct way to open a parachute and the correct body position for freefall. Level 2 also has the student doing altitude checks to demonstrate altitude awareness to the instructor. The student will be opening the parachute on this level.
~Students who are Level 3 are taught how to use their body as a flying surface and learn how to do left and right hand turns in freefall. The student also has to retain all the required skills of the Level 2 jump so the work load has increased. Students will be doing altitude checks, practice ripcord pulls, turns to the left and right, waving off and opening the parachute.
~Once at Level 4 the student will have learned the correct freefall body position, how to read their altimeter, how to pull their parachute, how to turn and the basics of flying a canopy. At this point they are introduced to how to move forward and backwards in freefall.

After completing the 4 tandem levels each student must undergo a Transition Jump Course in which they are taught about possible malfunctions of a parachute and how to correctly deal with those, how to fly a parachute solo and how to freefall solo. This ground class is 4-6 hours long and at the end of the class the student is cleared to progress onto the first of 6 Instructor Assisted Freefalls.

~In the first of the solo freefalls the Level 5 student demonstrates to the instructor that they can open their parachute on their own, they can maintain altitude awareness, and they have stability on their own. The Instructor holds the student’s harness for the entire skydive. The instructor is there to give hand signals to the student so the student can correct their body position to a more optimal position. Once under canopy the student gets radio instructions for landing.
~On Level 6 the student exits with the instructor still holding onto their harness but once in freefall the instructor will let the student go once they demonstrate they are altitude aware and stable. The goal of this level is to demonstrate stability with out having an instructor hold you, altitude awareness, pulling on time while stable and basic canopy skills while still getting basic radio guidance.
~Level 7 consists of the student doing turns while the instructor is there in freefall to assist if needed. In this skydive the student builds on the skills that they learned on Level 6 to have a skydive that consists of altitude checks, being released from the instructor, doing a 360 degree right turn, altitude check, left 360 degree turn, altitude check, wave off and pull.
~Solo exits are introduced at Level 8. Back flips are also introduced. Back flips are used to demonstrate instability recovery techniques. Also basic tracking is used to gain separation from the instructor at pull time. The flow of this Level is one that after exiting the plane and doing altitude checks the student would perform a back flip as soon as they instructor motions them to. After recovering from this back flip the student checks the altitude and would either do another flip or would turn 180 degrees and track for 3 seconds before opening their parachute. The student is usually removed from the radio before or on this level.
~Level 9 is the last of the levels with an instructor. In this level Front flips are used to further reinforce instability recovery. The Student dives out the door on this level and does the entire skydive with no prompting from the Instructor. On successful completion of this level the student is cleared to jump with out an instructor.
~Level 10 is a solo skydive that the student does to work on freefall skills without an instructor in the air with them. An instructor is there in the plane to make sure the have proper gear checks and exit at the right time, but besides that the student has become almost an independent jumper.
~Level 11 is the final student level. This is an exit from under 5000 feet. This level demonstrates that the student can rapidly gain stability on exit if there was an airplane emergency that required exiting the airplane at a low altitude. Many students find this both the scariest but most thrilling jump of their solo progression. After successfully completing this level the Student is considered Graduated and will be pointed in the direction of some of SGC's freefall coaches to meet the requirements to earn a USPA A license.

*Advancement through the levels is dependent on student performance.