Good day! I'm TMac I love FPV flight and I've decided to position myself to
take advantage of any new opportunities that may come about
with the FAA's implementation of new regulations.
Things like flights beyond the visual line of sight!
So, with that in mind and as part of my Journey to Better FPV fun,
I chose to prep for (and take) the FAA's Part 107 exam
to become certified as a Remote Pilot with a Small Unmanned Aircraft System (or
sUAS) rating - commonly referred to as a "Commercial Drone License."
In this video I'm going to show you how I did my Part 107 exam prep
by using the available free study resources from the FAA
and a couple online youtube videos. This process I used (which you can too!)
enabled me to pass the part 107 exam with a 92%
score and obtain my FAA Certification as a Remote Pilot.
I found the most challenging part of prepping for the exam to be finding out
what to study. So in this video I'll show you exactly what topics I studied,
then provide you with the specific free resources I used to study those topics,
along with my study schedule, and the specific notes I made for myself along
the way that helped me to pass the Part 107 exam
and obtain my Remote Pilot certification. All resources are linked in the video's
description below. If I can do this, YOU you can too! Sound good?
Then give this video a "thumbs up" below, share it with your buddies, and subscribe
to your TMac FPV channel - your home for your Journey to Better FPV
fun, flights, and racing stuff!
Before we get started with the topics, I'd recommend you go ahead and schedule
your exam for two reasons: one - it's going to encourage you to study
and, two - based on current situations you may find the occupancy of a valid
test location is limited and there may not be any test slots
available near you for an extended period of time.
So you might want to schedule your exam well in advance. Before you even schedule
your exam you'll need to obtain an FAA tracking
number (or an FTN). To obtain an FTN you'll need to go to
this IACRA website at iacra.faa.gov
which i'll link below. from there i recommend you read this new user's guide
and it'll explain the process to you including registering as an applicant on
the home page. so you go back to the home page, click on
register, applicant, read these terms of service
and if you agree, click on agree to terms of service and
continue. Then you'll need to fill out the
information it asks of you and click on register. IACRA will then display your
FAA tracking number (or the FTN) which you'll want to write down and save
somewhere because you're going to need this number to schedule your test.
Once you have your FTN, you can then go ahead and schedule your exam.
For your initial exam for a Remote Pilot certificate, that's going to be the
Unmanned Aircraft General-Small (UAG). To find an approved
test center near you and to schedule your exam with your new
FAA tracking number you'll go to this psi site at faa.psiexams.com
which of course I'll provide you a link to in the video description below.
Alright let's say you've done all that and are ready to start studying. Let's
take a look at some of the topics you should learn.
Real quick before we get started with the topics, Iwant to show you the three
main resources you can get for free which i'll be listing throughout the
remainder of this video. They're the Remote Pilot Study Guide,
the Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, and the Aeronautical
Information Manual. All three of these are available from
the FAA site or I've also linked to them in this video's description below.
There's one other book you may want to consider getting and that's the Airman
Knowledge Testing Supplement. It's not free and you will be provided
that when you take your exam because it's what all the sectional
chart test questions refer to. You can pick this up for around ten dollars on
Amazon and I've linked it down in the video
description below as well. My thought was "If i can practice with the actual book
they'll be having me use on the exam, why not go ahead and get it for a few
bucks?" Now before you get overwhelmed, you don't need to read all of any of
these books. In fact, what you'll see as we go through the
rest of this video is i've identified specifically for you
only the sections of each of these which I spent time reading and studying.
It's really not that bad at all. Okay, the first topic you'll need to become
familiar with is airspace. Don't be too concerned about
the complexity of this chart. What I want you to get out of this right
now is there are four types of airspace: controlled, uncontrolled, special use,
and other. Within controlled and uncontrolled airspace
you have these six classifications you see here,
namely A, B, C, D, E, and G that you'll need to know about.
All of these airspace classifications you see here (with the exception of
G) are what's considered controlled airspace. Controlled airspace is simply
that in which air traffic control service is used to maintain control and
safety of the airspace. Class G is uncontrolled and therefore
doesn't have any air traffic control service.
Now you'll need to know a bit more about these airspace classifications such as
if you're planning on flying within controlled airspace you'll need to get
prior authorization from air traffic control (or ATC).
You'll also need to identify these different classifications of airspace on
an aeronautical section chart which is
actually our second topic. To become familiar and proficient with
the airspace topic, these are the specific sections
and pages of the free resources which I studied. So here's the sectional chart
topic i just mentioned. What a mess, right?!? No worries! You're
going to get this with no problem! Here's why. Remember I said they give you
that Airman Knowledge Testing Supplement book which I'm recommending you go ahead
and get ahead of time to practice with? Well when they ask you a sectional chart
question, they refer you to a figure in that book.
It's an open book test when it comes to sectional chart questions!
They may ask you to find out how high you can fly when inspecting a tower
a specific distance from an airport. So to answer that question,
you'll need to know what the symbol for a tower looks like. No problem.
It's right over here! They give you the answer in the legend
at the beginning of the book! Remember that. Use the legend in the front of the
book they give you. If you purchase it ahead of time, go
ahead and practice with the book. Also, in the margins of the figure they refer you
to, there's a scale of distances shown. They
also give you a ruler. So use the ruler and the scale shown in
the margin of the figure to measure out the distance they want
you to identify the tower from the airport.
Next to the tower will be some numbers. Let's take this tower as an example
southwest of the airport. It's got two numbers associated with it.
The top one is 1331 and that's how high the tower is from
mean sea level (or MSL). This bottom number in parentheses is 420.
That's how high the top of the tower is above the ground -
above ground level, (or AGL). Because you'll have studied the rules and regulations,
you'll know you can fly 400 feet over the top of a structure as long as
you're within a 400 foot radius of it. So you can add 400 to 420
and then say you're allowed to fly 820 feet high
when inspecting this tower. But you also need to have an understanding of what
class airspace you're in identified by these
colored circles. Anytime you'll be in controlled airspace
(as defined earlier) you'll need to get air traffic control (or ATC) authorization
to enter that airspace. In this case we're not in any colored
circles so it looks like we're in class G
airspace here and can fly that 820 feet high
within a 400 foot radius of that tower without requiring ATC
authorization. For this one example showing how to read a sectional chart,
you've just learned about obstruction symbols
(the tower) from the legend, the fact that the legend
is in the front of the Airman Knowledge Testing Supplement they give you for the
test and it contains a lot of the answers for
you. Yyou've also learned elevations of the top of the structure above mean sea
level (or MSL) are those numbers without parentheses,
the height of the structure above ground level (or AGL), and those are
the numbers in parentheses, different classes of airspace
are defined by different colored solid
and dashed boundaries which are described again over here in the legend,
and if you intend on flying in controlled airspace
you're going to need air traffic control (or ATC) authorization first.
Now, of course, there's other things you need to learn about reading sectional
charts and these are the free resources and
specific sections I used to get up to speed on them.
Our next topic is the different types of weather and how it affects aircraft
flight along with how to read routine weather
reports and terminal area forecasts. The diagram shown here depicts the life
cycle of a thunderstorm from the Pilot's Handbook of
Aeronautical Knowledge. There are three stages
to a thunderstorm life cycle. Those are the cumulus stage, the mature stage which
is the most dangerous to aircraft, and the dissipating stage
which severe downdrafts can be associated with. Over here we have the
format for a routine weather report or METAR. This
first block of letters (the word METAR) is just the type of
weather report. KGGG is the station identifier for which
the report is valid. 161753Z is the date and time the report was
issued. So on the 16th day of the month at 1753
zulu (coordinated universal time). AUTO means the report was
automatically generated. These numbers with KT behind them
are the wind speed and direction. The wind direction is coming from 140
degrees, at 21 knots, gusting to 26 knots.
Visibility is three quarters of a statute mile
with thunderstorms and rain. The plus sign in front of TSRA means
"heavy." So heavy thunderstorms and rain along with mist.
The visibility is broken at 800 feet and overcast at 1200 feet with
cumulonimbus clouds. The temperature is 18 degrees, the dew
point is 17 degrees and the barometric pressure is 29.7.
The remarks are that the pressure is falling rapidly.
That's basically how you read a METAR. Here we have a Terminal Area Forecast (TAF)
which uses basically the same format as a METAR. The main difference is it's
broken down into different forecast times denoted by
the letters "FM" which stands for "from." So this terminal
area forecast which was published on the 11th day of
the month at 1130 zulu is good
for the time frame of the 11th day of the month
at 1200 zulu to the 12th day of the month
at 1200 zulu, or for a 24 hour period. Then they break the forecast down
into specific chunks of time. From 1500 zulu the wind is coming from
160 degrees at 15 knots and gusting to 25 knots. The
visibility is greater than six statute miles.
You've got scattered clouds at 4000 feet, etc.
All times are in coordinated universal time
for both the METAR and the TAF which is sometimes identified
by the letter z for zulu time. Of note on the TAF,
you'll see these letters "CB." Those stand for cumulonimbus clouds
which are the clouds that form thunderstorms.
Don't take the topics of weather and reading the formats of weather reports
lightly. Tthe specific sections of the free
resources I studied for these topics are listed here. Our next topic is
Airport Operations which includes traffic patterns. Unless
otherwise indicated, the standard are left hand traffic
patterns. This simply means that on approach of an
aircraft to an airport it will normally be turning to the left.
The runways are normally aligned in the direction of the prevailing winds for
that area and the aircraft will always take off
and land into the wind against the direction of
the wind because it gives the aircraft more lift to do so.
The direction of the wind is seen over here on the right by this wind indicator
and is also identified by this downwind text block here. Normally aircraft will
enter the traffic pattern at a 45 degree angle
midway on the downwind leg of the traffic pattern,
turn left on the base leg, and then left again on final
landing into the wind. If this were the layout of an actual
runway, this runway would be labeled 09 for 90 degrees from north. Directly south
would be 180 degrees, and directly west would be 270 degrees.
So when the aircraft is on the final leg for runway zero nine,
it's heading in this direction into the wind.
If the aircraft is "left downwind of zero nine,"
that means it's on the downwind leg of the pattern
with the runway on its left heading this way.
Or, for our example, due west at 270 degrees.
The aircraft would be physically located north
up here of the runway. The information I studied to learn more about airport
operations can be found in these specific sections
of the free resources. Small UAS loading is our next topic. One
of the things you should know about this is anytime an aircraft is doing anything
other than straight and level flight there's an
additional load on the aircraft. Here's where you can do some simple math with
your calculator. To calculate the load on an aircraft when it's banking
left or right using this chart, if your model aircraft
weighs 50 pounds and you have it banking at a 50 degree
angle, using this chart we see the load factor would be about
1.5. You take the weight of the aircraft (which would be 50 for our example)
and multiply it by the load factor of 1.5.
You get a load on the aircraft of 75 pounds.
More information on small UAS loading and the basics of flight aerodynamics
can be found in these specific sections of the free resources.
Our next topic is called Aeronautical Decision Making (or ADM).
Now the FAA has spent a lot of time and effort developing various types of ADM
training and it's required to be incorporated into pilot certification
processes. So you know you're going to get
questions on this topic. ADM is a systematic approach
used by pilots to determine the best course of action in response to a given
set of circumstances. Two defining elements of ADM are hazards
and risk. The goal of risk management is to
proactively identify safety related hazards and reduce their
associated risks. One known hazard can be the attitude of
the pilot. The FAA has identified five hazardous
attitudes as depicted in this chart. Should you
find yourself or others experiencing any of these attitudes,
the antidote or remedy for them to eliminate the hazard is listed over here
on the right. There's a lot of information on the ADM
process and I highly recommend you study the sections identified here.
Our last topic is Rules and Regulations and there's really not that many to
remember. However, since this is an exam pertaining
to Part 107 of Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations,
you might want to take a look at it. Seriously!
I've got it linked below and most (if not all) of the important things to remember
about it I've condensed in my own personal study
notes which I've also made available through a link below.
These are things like how old you need to be to register an sUAS
and the answer to that is 13 years old. You need to be 16 years old to take the
certification exam. Daylight operations of your UAS, to
include the definition of civil twilight and what's required during those times
of day. 14 CFR Part 48 also has more information
on registration and marking requirements for small unmanned aircraft. These
are the specific sections within Part 48 you may want to
take a look at. Beyond these topics I've gone over, I
strongly recommend you take a few practice tests
once you think you've gone over enough of the material to check and see if in
fact you're ready for the exam. Here are three I've gone through that
helped me. I also recommend that you take a look at
these five videos. In fact, before reading up on any of these topics,
I'd start just by casually watching Tony Northrup's video.
Although it's a few years old, the information in it is still good
and it'll get your mind in the right mode to learn this stuff. The Aeroworks
Productions three videos on sectional charts are
outstanding - I highly recommend them! In this last video by Better B-roll, it goes
through a whole bunch of practice questions and answers. It's basically a
video practice test. So what I've done here is taken all of
those topics we just went over along with the specific study resources and
sections and drafted up a possible study schedule
for you. This isn't really an aggressive schedule at
all. It amounts to about 45 minutes to an hour per day.
You, of course, could do more to shorten the amount of time or less depending
upon the amount of time you're able to commit to your goal.
I know for me it worked best to schedule my exam up front
which basically encouraged me to get a little bit done each day. I know one
thing for sure - if you want to get FAA certified as a
Remote Pilot you can do it with all the free resources available to you.
If i can do it, YOU can too! That's the process I used to become an FAA certified
Remote Pilot. Let me know if you plan on using it as
your FAA Part 107 exam prep and, if you do, come back after your exam
and leave a comment below describing your exam experience.
I know you're going to do great! Thanks for your time. I'll see you next video.