hi everyone so if you're planning on taking the part 107 remote pilot test you've probably stumbled across a question like this while monitoring the coopertown sea you hear an aircraft announce that they're Midfield left downwind to Runway 13 where would the aircraft be relative to the runway I pulled this question directly from the practice test provided by the FAA and while most of the questions on the practice test are pretty straightforward this is one type of question that to me at least wasn't immediately apparent and I think having some background knowledge on aircraft flight patterns is really going to help you out if you get a question like this on your test so let's jump in and take a look at this question and explain how we can come to the correct answer I've also created a few other practice questions so stick around to make sure you're fully prepared in case a question like this pops up on your test first let's break down the basics Runway orientation is wind dependent with planes typically landing and taking off into the wind for better LIF during a descent a plane will make a 45° entry and fly parallel to the runway on its left side this is known as the downwind leg then the plane will make a left turn perpendicular to the runway this is known as the base leg and then finally the plane will turn left again and make a Final Approach for landing knowing this pattern is really going to help you out in answering any of these kinds of questions that are related to aircraft flight patterns so now that we have a broader understanding of aircraft landing and departure patterns let's identify what parts of the question are actually important but really the important words to focus on are Midfield left downwind and Runway 13 to solve this question go ahead and start by drawing a circle and you'll be provided some blank paper when you take the test so don't don't worry about that but this will be your Aviation compass then go ahead and draw four dashes one for north east south and west then label those dashes as follows North will be 36 East 9 South 18 and West 27 each of these numbers corresponds to a Runway Direction the question states that the aircraft is Midfield left downwind to Runway 13 we know that Runway 13 is somewhere between 9 and 18 so we'll draw a line across our Circle here if a plane is landing on Runway 13 it means that it will land in the direction of 13 and i' like to draw little arrows on the runway pointing to the runway number just because it helps me with orientation Okay so we've established the runway location but we still need to figure out the position position of the plane the term Midfield left implies the runway is to the aircraft's left from the Pilot's perspective so picture this in your drawing as the pilot is looking out his or her window on the left they will see the runway okay so we have our plane accurately placed on the map and we can see that the position of the aircraft relative to the runway is East so the correct answer is a okay so here are a few more sample questions and by all means feel free to pause the video if you'd like to figure them out on your own while monitoring the Charleston sea you hear an aircraft announce that they are Midfield left downwind to Runway 27 where would the aircraft be relative to the runway north west or south so we'll answer this question the same way by first drawing our Aviation Compass followed by our Runway we know the aircraft is left downwind of the runway which would position the plane south of the runway while monitoring the Pittsburgh sea you hear an aircraft announce that they are Midfield left downwind to Runway 4 so step one draw our Aviation Compass step two we'll draw our Runway and then step three let's go ahead and place the aircraft so it is Midfield left of the runway and again remember the runway should be to the left of the pilot so we know the answer should be B West all right let's change it up a bit here let's say the question is this an aircraft announces that they are on the short final of Runway 18 where is the aircraft in relation to the airport is it north west or south so to answer this question we can apply the same approach as before however we now need to understand what they mean by short final the term short final refers to the last part of the Final Approach to a Runway when an aircraft is on short final for a particular Runway it is aligned with and approaching the end of that Runway this means that they will be North since they are just about to land on Runway 18 here's another type of question you might see while monitoring the Honolulu sea you hear an aircraft announc that there are Midfield left downwind to Runway 12 what is the heading of the aircraft so to solve this question start the same way as you did the others draw an aviation Compass label the runway in this case Runway 12 this question isn't asking about the aircraft's position relative to the runway but instead what direction the aircraft is heading since the aircraft is landing on Runway 12 the downwind leg will be flown in the opposite direction so here's a little tip about figuring out Runway headings basically if the runway number is 18 or less you just add a zero to that Runway number and then add 180 degrees to that so in our case Runway 12 what we would do is make that 120 and then we would add 180 to that and that gives you the opposite corresponding Runway Direction now if we have a Runway number that's greater than 18 like 22 for instance will make that 220 minus 180 so we actually subtract anytime it's a Runway number that's greater than 18 I know that's a little confusing but I'll go ahead and throw in one more example here that includes a Runway number greater than 18 just so we can practice that as well while monitoring the Albany Caff you hear an aircraft announc that they are Midfield left downwind to Runway 22 what is the heading of the aircraft is it 30° 40° or 50° okay we can do our initial setup here just so we can get oriented now instead of adding 180 we're going to subtract 180 so remember that anytime it's a Runway number that's greater than 18 we're going to subtract 180 so we'll take 220 minus 180 to get 40° this is our correct answer so that's going to do it for this video but just to recap don't be intimidated by these questions just remember to take your time draw a circle and map out the cardinal directions and think about the way that planes land and take off if you have any additional questions about this topic let us know in the comments below and we'll do our best to answer them best of luck in studying for your drone pilot test and we'll see you next [Music] time [Music]