Operations

Preflight (107.49)

Before every flight the remote PIC must do three things. First, assess the operating environment: local weather, local airspace and any flight restrictions, the location of people and property on the surface, and other ground hazards such as wires, towers, and trees. Second, brief every participant on operating conditions, emergency procedures, contingency procedures, roles and responsibilities, and potential hazards. Third, inspect the aircraft: confirm it is in a condition for safe operation, that the control links between the control station and the aircraft work, that there is enough power for the intended operation, and that any object carried is secure and does not adversely affect flight characteristics or controllability.

A useful preflight follows the manufacturer's checklist and adds: airspace and TFR check, battery condition and charge, propeller condition and tightness, airframe cracks, gimbal and payload mounts, compass and GPS status, firmware verified, return-to-home point and altitude set, takeoff and landing area clear, and a plan for where the aircraft goes if the link drops. The safety page has a printable version.

Crew resource management

CRM is the effective use of all available resources: people, equipment, and information. Airlines invented it after accidents in which crews failed to speak up or the captain failed to listen. For a drone crew it means:

• Clear roles: who is remote PIC, who is on the controls, who is the visual observer, who manages the client and the bystanders.
• A briefing before flight and a debrief after.
• Standard communication: clock positions for traffic ("traffic, two o'clock, low"), compass directions for the aircraft, call-outs for altitude and battery, and a word that means stop.
• A sterile cockpit: no unnecessary conversation during takeoff, landing, and emergencies.
• Assertiveness: anyone on the crew can and should call a hazard. The remote PIC decides, but should want to hear it.
• Shared situational awareness: everyone knows where the aircraft is, what it is doing, and what traffic is around. Warning signs of lost awareness include fixation on the screen, confusion, ambiguity about the aircraft's position, and losing track of time or battery.

A visual observer (107.33) extends the crew's eyes. The VO must be able to see the aircraft unaided and must be in effective communication with the remote PIC at all times. A VO does not fly, cannot cover a second aircraft, and does not let the aircraft go beyond the remote PIC's own ability to see it.

Aeronautical decision making

ADM is a systematic approach to choosing the best course of action in a given set of circumstances. The FAA teaches several memory aids, and the test asks about all of them.

PAVE: identifying risk before flight

• Pilot: your health, fatigue, currency, experience with this aircraft and this kind of job.
• Aircraft: condition, battery, performance limits, payload.
• enVironment: weather, airspace, terrain, obstacles, people, time of day.
• External pressures: the client waiting, the money, the schedule, the urge to get the shot.

IMSAFE: am I fit to fly?

• Illness, Medication, Stress, Alcohol, Fatigue, Emotion (sometimes Eating). Any yes is a reason to reconsider.

DECIDE: responding to a change

• Detect that a change has occurred. Estimate the need to react. Choose a desirable outcome. Identify actions to get there. Do the best action. Evaluate the result.

The five hazardous attitudes and their antidotes

Risk management

A hazard is a condition that could cause harm (a tree line, a crowd, gusty wind). Risk is the likelihood and severity of the harm that hazard could cause. The FAA's risk matrix scores likelihood (improbable to frequent) against severity (negligible to catastrophic). Risks in the red are mitigated until they are acceptable, or the flight does not happen. Mitigations include changing the launch site, adding a VO, waiting for wind to drop, reducing altitude, or saying no to the client. Most accidents trace to a chain of small decisions; break any link and the accident does not happen.

Emergency procedures

Under 107.21 the remote PIC may deviate from any rule to the extent necessary to meet an emergency, and must send a written report if the FAA asks. The best emergency procedure is the one you planned before takeoff:

• Lost link. Know what your aircraft does when the control signal drops. Most execute a return-to-home at a preset altitude after a few seconds. Set that altitude above every obstacle between the aircraft and home, confirm the home point before every flight, and know how to cancel the return if the link comes back.
• Flyaway. Try to regain control (switch modes, re-establish the link, use the return function). If you are in controlled airspace, tell ATC immediately: what, where, altitude, direction. Note the last known position and battery remaining. Afterward, decide whether 107.9 requires an accident report.
• Low battery. Land as soon as practical. Warnings are based on capacity that is already draining faster than the estimate; a headwind on the return makes it worse. Never push a battery to finish a job.
• GPS loss. Most aircraft drop to an attitude mode: level, but drifting with the wind. Fly it manually and land. Practice attitude-mode flying somewhere open before you need it.
• Motor or propeller failure. A quadcopter cannot fly on three motors; aim for the safest impact point if any control remains. Hexacopters and octocopters may limp home. After any prop strike or bird strike, land as soon as safely possible and inspect before flying again.
• Loss of visual line of sight. Regain it immediately, with the VO's help. If you cannot, bring the aircraft back toward you or land it.
• Manned aircraft approaching. Yield: descend or move away, and never pass over, under, or ahead of it unless well clear. A low helicopter is the most common conflict for drone pilots.
• Fire. Lithium battery fires burn hot and reignite. Use a bucket of sand, a LiPo bag, or let it burn in a safe spot. Do not use water on a burning pack that is still charged.

Radio communication

You will rarely transmit on an aviation radio as a Part 107 pilot, but listening is one of the best situational awareness tools available, and the test expects you to understand what you hear.

• The phonetic alphabet: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu. Numbers are spoken digit by digit; nine is "niner".
• CTAF is the common traffic advisory frequency at non-towered airports, usually a UNICOM frequency such as 122.8 or 122.95. Pilots announce their position and intentions: "Millbrook traffic, Skyhawk 12345, turning base, runway 18, Millbrook." Hearing that tells you an aircraft is about to be low over the approach end of runway 18.
• ATIS is a recorded loop at towered airports with the weather, altimeter, runway in use, and notices, updated hourly and labeled with a phonetic letter. The wind on ATIS is magnetic.
• Tower, ground, and approach frequencies are in the airport data and the Chart Supplement. If ATC gives you an instruction while you are operating under an authorization, follow it.
• A handheld aviation band receiver is legal to listen to without a license. Transmitting on aviation frequencies is for aircraft stations and should not be done casually from the ground.
• Standard phraseology keeps messages short and unambiguous: who you are calling, who you are, where you are, what you want.

Airport operations

107.43 prohibits interfering with operations and traffic patterns at any airport, heliport, or seaplane base, towered or not, authorized or not. To stay out of the way you need to know where manned aircraft will be.

• Runway numbers are the magnetic heading divided by ten: runway 9 points east (090°), runway 27 is the same strip used westbound. Opposite ends differ by 18. Parallel runways add L, C, R.
• The traffic pattern is a rectangle flown at about 1,000 ft AGL: upwind (along the runway after takeoff), crosswind, downwind (parallel to the runway, opposite the landing direction), base (perpendicular, descending), and final (aligned with the runway, descending). Standard patterns use left turns; RP on the chart or Chart Supplement means right turns for that runway. Aircraft on base and final descend through your altitude.
• Wind indicators. A wind sock points downwind; aircraft take off and land into the wind. A tetrahedron points into the wind. The segmented circle around the indicator has L-shaped extensions that show the pattern direction for each runway.
• Airport beacons: white and green, civilian land airport; white and yellow, water airport; green, yellow, and white, heliport; two quick white flashes and green, military airport. A beacon on during the day usually means the weather is below VFR minimums.
• Runway markings are white; taxiway markings are yellow. A runway holding position marking is two solid and two dashed yellow lines; nobody crosses from the solid side without clearance. A displaced threshold (white arrows) is runway you may taxi on but not land on.
• Approach lighting and VASI/PAPI lights guide aircraft on final at a 3 degree glide path. Around any runway, the extended centerline, several miles out, is where aircraft are lowest.
• Helicopters do not follow fixed-wing patterns and often fly well below 400 ft, especially near hospitals, police facilities, and pipelines.

Night operations

Allowed without a waiver since April 2021 if the remote PIC has current night training (the initial test or recurrent course taken since then) and the aircraft has anti-collision lighting visible for at least 3 statute miles with a flash rate sufficient to avoid a collision (107.29). The lights are also required during civil twilight: 30 minutes before sunrise to 30 minutes after sunset in the contiguous United States. Beyond the rule, night flying is about your eyes:

• The retina has cones in the center (color, detail, need light) and rods around the edges (dim light, no color, poor detail). At night, off-center viewing, looking slightly to one side of an object, puts it on the rods.
• Dark adaptation takes about 30 minutes and is destroyed in seconds by a bright white light. Dim your screen, use red light at the control station, and avoid looking at headlights.
• Autokinesis: a single stationary light stared at in the dark appears to move. Keep your eyes scanning and use reference points. A bright anti-collision strobe also helps distinguish your aircraft from stars and towers.
• Depth and distance are hard to judge at night; obstacles without lights are invisible. Survey the site in daylight, note wires and towers, and set a conservative return-to-home altitude.
• Fatigue and lower oxygen (even mild hypoxia, at altitude) degrade night vision first.

Physiological factors: drugs, alcohol, fatigue, stress

• Alcohol: the legal limits (8 hours, 0.04 percent) are minimums. Alcohol impairs judgment and reaction time starting with the first drink, and hangover effects persist long after the blood alcohol is zero. 107.27 applies 91.17 to every crewmember.
• Drugs: many over-the-counter and prescription medications impair performance: antihistamines, sleep aids, cold medicines, muscle relaxants, some blood pressure drugs. 91.17 prohibits acting as a crewmember while using any drug that affects your faculties in a way contrary to safety. When in doubt, do not fly, and ask a doctor or an aviation medical examiner.
• Fatigue: acute fatigue comes from a long day or short sleep and is cured by rest. Chronic fatigue builds over weeks and needs a change in habits. Fatigue narrows attention and slows decisions much like alcohol does.
• Stress: a little sharpens focus, a lot narrows it to the wrong thing. Acute stress (an angry client, a close call) and chronic stress (money, family) both degrade judgment. It is the S in IMSAFE.
• Dehydration and heat: remote pilots stand outdoors for hours. Headache, fatigue, and poor concentration are early signs. Water, shade, and breaks are part of the plan.
• Hyperventilation and hypoxia show up on the test from the manned-aircraft syllabus: hyperventilation (rapid breathing from anxiety) causes dizziness and tingling, fixed by slowing the breathing; hypoxia (lack of oxygen) matters at high elevation sites.

Maintenance and inspection

Part 107 has no maintenance regulation beyond the requirement that the aircraft be in a condition for safe operation (107.15) and be inspected before flight (107.49). Advisory Circular 107-2 recommends:

• Follow the manufacturer's maintenance schedule and procedures. If there is none, develop your own based on experience and operating conditions, covering inspection intervals, wear items (propellers, motors, batteries), and firmware.
• Keep records: flights, battery cycles, repairs, firmware versions. Not required by Part 107, but it is how you notice trends, satisfy insurers and waivers, and prove due diligence.
• Inspect after any hard landing, crash, or unusual vibration before flying again.
• Install firmware updates at home and verify settings (return-to-home altitude, geofence, failsafes) with a test flight before the next job.
• Battery care: store partially charged at the manufacturer's storage voltage, charge in a fire-safe container, never charge a hot, swollen, or damaged pack, and retire packs that have been in a crash.
• Replace propellers at the first chip or crack. They are the cheapest part on the aircraft and the most common cause of vibration and crashes.

Test tips for operations questions

• Memory aids are tested directly: know what PAVE, IMSAFE, DECIDE, and the five hazardous attitudes stand for.
• Airport questions assume you understand the traffic pattern and runway numbering. Sketch the rectangle once and it stays with you.
• The "right" answer to any emergency question is the conservative one: land, yield, regain line of sight, inspect.
• Physiology questions come from the manned-pilot handbook, so expect vocabulary like hyperventilation and dark adaptation even though you are on the ground.

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