What is 4-Way?

The Basics

4-Way Formation Skydiving (4-way) is one discipline in competitive skydiving. A team of 4 skydivers completes a sequence of formations as many times as possible in 35 seconds while the 5th member of the team films from about 10 feet above them. Judges then score the team by reviewing the video on the ground.

Teams exit 10,500 ft above ground level and typically separate at about 4,500 ft before deploying their parachutes at 3,500 ft.

Slightly more detail

The sequences are drawn randomly from a standardized Dive Pool of formations, and each team runs through the same sequence for any given round of a 10-round competition.

Time starts when any member other than the videographer leaves the plane and stops exactly 35 seconds later (35 seconds of "working time"). Teams start moving as soon as they're out the door ("on the hill") before they've reached terminal velocity and try to get through as many sets of the sequence ("pages") as they can before time runs out.

The team consists of 5 positions: Point, Outside Center, Inside Center, Tail, and the Videographer. Point and Outside Center are often paired up during block moves and are known as the "front piece"; similarly, Inside Center and Tail are known as the "back piece". Traditionally the Inside Center signals ("keys") when to move on to the next point for most formations.

The Dive Pool

The dive pool consists of 38 formations:

There are 16 Randoms, labeled A-Q (no 'I' so it won't get confused with the number 1), and each one is a static formation worth 1 point.

There are 22 Blocks, numbered 1-22, which consist of a formation at the start (the "top" of the block), some sort of movement of 2 or more subgroups of the team (the "inter"), and then another formation at the end (the "bottom" of the block). Each block is worth 2 points when correctly built and executed.

Some blocks ("slot switchers") involve either the front piece (usually blocks 3, 10, 12, 16) or both the front and back pieces (blocks 5 and 17) switching places with their piece partner, which then puts them in a different position for the next part of the sequence until they switch back.

Points are deducted (a "bust") for errors: an incorrectly built formation, incomplete separation between formations, a grip that isn't visible on the video, etc. Each jump consists of either 5 or 6 points.

Randoms

Blocks 1-8

Blocks 9-16

Blocks 17-22

An Example

Round 2 of the 2024 World Championships was a 6-point jump:

J-C-17-12 (formations worth 1-1-2-2 points)

Airspeed built 28 formations but got a bust for incomplete separation on point 2, for a final score of 27.

Blocks 17 and 12 are both slot switchers for the front piece; because they're back-to-back Point and Outside Center stay in the same place for each page.

Only block 17 is a switcher for the back piece, so Inside Center and Tail change places on each page.