this is the FAA part 107 remote pilot study guide for 2025 and in this video you will learn everything you need to know about sectional charts all the examples taken directly from the Airman knowledge testing supplement so get ready sectional charts in detail Part 9 of 12 Advanced Starts Now what is the best way to learn how to read a map or in your situation a sectional chart well maybe the best way is to learn how to read a sectional chart in sections so by giving you the content objectives the first section will be class of airace the second section will be airports and restricted areas the third section will be altitudes and vertical limits and the fourth section will be chart symbols and instructions and all of these sections are crucial for you to develop a complete understanding of what you will need to pass the part 107 exam now I have to tell you something this is going to be a long video probably one of the most comprehensive resources you'll find on sectional charts anywhere and you will need the Airman knowledge testing supplement in your hand the same one that they will be providing you when you arrive at the testing site now we're going to be going over every single sectional chart excerpt within the supplement so that way you become familiar with all of the details in each chart while you're actually facing the questions on the part 107 exam and to keep you in sync with this study guide on the bottom right you will always see the figure and the area of the sectional chart that we're working on currently and since you know where I'm at right now go to your testing supplement and open to figure 20 Area 1 and as you can see I'm showing you where Area 1 is on screen the little red ball with the number one inside of it and the reason I'm asking you to open your testing supplement is because you have to start getting used to actually turning pages and forming muscle memory in your fingers so let's focus on the class of airspace that you're looking at right now so we can discuss all of the details and that way there won't be anything on these charts that you're unfamiliar with and you can see that my status bar has switched over to airspace so first let's talk about some of the most difficult Concepts to understand about airspace on a sectional chart now let's take a look at nalk International Airport do you see that there are multi- layers here this is Class C airospace as you know with the solid magenta line but there are three layers here if I could draw this on a diagram so you see what it looks like on a three-dimensional basis well let me do that right now so I drew this three-dimensional sketch of nalk international airport for you went above and beyond here so that way you can understand let me put it next to the sectional chart so that way we can discuss this now the reason that I'm doing this is because whenever you're looking at a sessional chart which is basically two-dimensional it's difficult for you to really gain an integral perspective of exactly what's going on so I drew this in 3D so that way you'd be able to look at all of the dimensions and understand where everything is and please don't criticize my terrible artwork I try to be as accurate as possible and this was the best I could come up with so we're looking at the three-dimensional view on the right and you can see that Nar International Airport is basically sitting in its own little space starting from the surface and extending upwards with a ceiling of 4,000 ft now look over to the sectional chart you can see northfalk International starts at the surface and has 4,000 ft for its ceiling of that Class C airspace and you can see that slightly to the west of nalk is Nora NS Chambers oh and by the way in case you didn't know NS stands for naval station and I know you can already tell that there quite a few military bases in the area and the floor of that airspace starts at 2,000 ft as depicted in both the sectional chart and also the diagram that I just drew now this poses a very interesting and important question if nor F naval station has an airspace Class C that starts at 20,000 ft then what is the airspace below that and more importantly what are its limits or its values pause the video here for a moment and let's think about the correct answer okay so I see something that is hidden from Plain Sight something that I would not see if I was using the testing supplement and without a magnifying glass I would not be able to detect this one thing look to see what is hidden inside of the solid magenta lines that are around nalk Naval Station are you able to see this in whatever form you're viewing it I'm going to pull it in so you can see it clearly there are dashed blue lines around northark naval station and they're inside of the solid magenta lines Class C around that airport what does this mean look on the piece of paper that you just wrote down the answer and see if it matches your thought patterns of what's happening right now those Dash blue lines inside of that magenta line Class C is an indication that class D airspace exists beneath Class C airspace at Nar NS naval station and what confirms this even more is that within those Dash blue lines is a minus 20 surrounded by a box which tells me that class D airspace exists from the surface up to 1,999 ft MSL or as they say up to but not including 2,000 ft MSL you got me and to clarify this without any question anytime you see a number inside of a box it will always be referenced at MSL in this case it says 2,000 ft MSL but that minus sign means that it's up to but not including 2,000 ft so therefore that minus 20 equals 1,999 ft MSL and the reason that minus sign is there is because at 2,000 ft that is considered as Class C airspace directly over that and if I put my little 3D illustration back up again you can see that there's nothing underneath Class C airspace as I mentioned but we now know what exists under Class C airspace is class D airspace as depicted in the sectional chart that you're looking at right now now there are some other airports in the area designated as class D airspace one of which is Langley Air Force Base to the Northwest and the other is Naval Air Station Oceana over to the southeast and just don't be the one who's flying a drone over those air bases like what happened 5 months ago and we're still on figure 20 Area 1 now you can see that both of these have the little box with number 25 in there so we already know since it doesn't have a minus sign and since this is class D airspace that the ceiling of both of those airports are 2,500 ft MSL and isn't it true that paying attention to all of these details really give you a good understanding about what's actually happening here on these sectional charts now let me ask you another question does naok Naval have a control tower some of you say yes some of you say no some say maybe listen I'm not afraid to admit when I don't know something this is the thing all of the airports that have a blue color have a control tower and all of the airports that have a magenta color do not have control towers and you'll basically need to just commit that to memory now there's something else that I see to the east of oceanana Naval Air Station and that is a restricted area it's labeled with the letter R you see r- 6606 do you see that the r stands for restricted airspace and these areas are designated airspace where flights are not permitted unless you have special permission these areas are to be considered as hazardous because of military operations and you see how it's overlapping Oceana Naval Air Station so r- 6606 specifically covers military training and operations at Oceana Naval Air Station now the big question here is can you fly through r- 6 606 and some of you are saying absolutely not and the others are saying I don't know well the correct answer is that if the restricted area is what they say hot or active then you cannot enter into that restricted area without ATC clearance from the controlling agency but if it is inactive or as they say cold then you can fly through it but it's recommended that you confirm the status of that restricted airspace with ATC or check your nms before you fly in that area now I want you to pay attention to something that you may not be aware of do you see R 6606 and that there is a boundary around that and that boundary is furthest to the east of oceanana but more importantly pay attention to how that line is running how it is exactly parallel to the Shoreline and if you could measure the distance from the shoreline to the line that is furthest to the east of the restricted area it would be exactly 3 nautical miles and aren't you curious to know why it's because when restricted areas are over waterer they usually only extend out as far as three nautical miles and after three nautical miles it is considered as international waters and the FAA only controls airspace within the US Sovereign territory which includes land and Coastal Waters up to three nautical miles offshore and you can clearly see that the restrict area is running directly parallel to the coastline of Virginia Beach and I know what you're looking at you're wondering then what are all of the other areas that are around it w5a warning 50b w50 C you don't know what those mean but I'm going to tell you what they are those are warning areas they are not restricted areas because the FAA has no control over those areas since they are Beyond three nautical miles and Pilots can legally enter into those warning areas at their own risk but keep in mind that military operations are being conducted in those warning areas such as high-speed fighter jets weapons testing all of these things may occur and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that it's probably a good idea for you to check your nms or contact Air Traffic Control now the key things to remember here is that restricted areas are only on land or three nautical miles offshore it's controlled by the FAA and warning areas they start Beyond 3 nautical miles offshore international waters it's not controlled by the FAA and it's advisory only now here is where I trick or train your brain to start thinking differently because all of this time you've been looking for airspace as something that has a ring around it and that boys and girls will be your Achilles heel you see you have to look at other airspace and determine what that airspace is even if it does not have a ring around it for example what is the airspace around Hampton Roads executive do you know if Hampton Road's executive PVG had a faded magenta ring around it then what class of airspace would it be and a lot of you are still saying I don't know well this is what you need to know you have the testing supplement in your hand go to your Legend and find out what does a faded magenta line or ring around an airport indicate well there are two things to consider here the airspace that is inside of the ring and the airspace that is outside of the ring so this is a little tricky to understand but I want you to think about that ring that's over the airport as a big giant dut and it's sitting 700 ft above ground over that airport and what's below that big giant dut at 700 ft AGL is class G airspace uncontrolled and as soon as you fly up to that dut at 700 ft AGL to take a bite of it then you will be in class E airspace which begins at 700 ft AGL so now we're talking about an airport that does not have a ring around it in fact it doesn't have anything around it or any designation it's just an airport sitting there by default it is going to be class G airspace starting at the surface all the way up to 1,200 ft AGL and then at 1,200 ft AGL Class E airspace will begin and that's the difference between having a faded magenta ring and not having a faded magenta ring at an airport so now let's drop down to figure 20 Area 3 and we're looking for Elizabeth City Regional Airport and that short hop took us from Virginia into North Carolina now there are a few things that I see here with Elizabeth City Regional that we need to discuss and there should be one very obvious thing that just stands out and it's the big giant circle with the tick marks that's around found the dash blue lines class D airspace what is that has anyone ever told you what that is well I'm going to tell you it is called a v compass rose and I know what you're thinking it doesn't look like a rose but it used to this is where the name compass rose comes from it's named after the traditional Compass row design that was used for maps and navigational tools back in the old days on sectional charts the compass row shows the radials in magnetic degrees that extend from the V V station and where do you think the V station is well I'm pointing to it right now it's that little tiny dot at the location on the airport near the runway and v stands for VHF omnidirectional range this station is a groundbased radio navigational system that's used by aircrafts so they can determine their position and stay on course now Pilots will tune their nav radios to the VR frequency which provides the asmith and the bearing from the station and also the DME which is the distance measuring equipment will provide the distance that the aircraft is from the station so you can see just how important this navigational tool is for Pilots so that explains the compass rows that you see on a sectional chart now let's see what else we can talk about ah the airport informational block now I want you to get into the habit of paying attention to what's in the information block of an airport each and every time you look at an airport on a sectional chart the reason for this is because it will allow you to gain a much wider perspective on what's going on around the airport also for example next to the airport name you see something that says cgas now if you didn't know what that mean you'd probably just ignore it and disregard it but it does have some relevant meaning and what it stands for is US Coast Guard air station and right off the bat doesn't that small bit of information provide you with just a wealth of knowledge it already tells me that we're going to be dealing with military planes sometimes large military planes military training routes I already know what's expected at this airport just by looking at that one thing now some other important information which is going to be on the part 107 exam is what is the control tower frequency and I remind you that this is an advanced sectional chart video so you should already know that answer now I see the control tower frequency at 120.5 MHz and these frequencies for the control tower and for the ca I'll explain that in a minute will always be in megahertz and if you see that on a part 107 exam and you choose anything other than megahertz then it's possible that you won't be answering that question correctly I'm giving you all of the answers so you pass this exam with a perfect score now if you look just to the right of the frequency in megahertz you will see a little star do you know what that means that little star indicates that the control tower is only staffed part-time and when the airport is closed the airport's airspace typically reverts to class E or class G airspace and you can see that there's a note here that says C nm/ directory for class d/e surface effective hours and the notm will provide updates about temporary changes such as when the airport is closed or when the control tower at the airport is not operational and at that moment when it is outside of the airport's operational hours Pilots have to self announce their positions and their intentions on what's called a Caff and the Caff in this situation is the same exact frequency as the control tower because you see the little C symol right next to the star now continue to look in the information block and look for something that says as oos and the way you say that is Asos and the acronym stands for automated surface observa system you got to love these acronyms asau sounds like something you put over spaghetti doesn't it well anyway asau is an automated real-time weather observation that is located at the airport and is broadcasted at a certain frequency and on this sectional chart that frequency is 124.32607 tell the pilots exactly what's going on so they can prepare accordingly for whatever it is that they're trying to do on an aviation navigational basis now just to remind you you do have all this information in your Legend it's explained very well and you'll be able to just take some time and review the information here so that you're familiar with what it is that you're seeing on a sectional chart if you have any questions at all you know you can always send me a comment I will answer your question so returning to figure 20 Area 3 I've acquired some useful information about this airport now let's look around to see what symbols we can find and you see I've just changed my status bar now notice that there are three letter RS to the west of the airport and there's one also to the east of the airport okay so I'm going to do like all the other study guides do those symbols are for restricted next now you know I wouldn't do that to you well anytime you see the magenta r with a magenta circle around it what you will usually find near or next to it is a private airport and what these private airports usually say some of them is that you can't just plop your plane down on my Runway without permission Pilots know that when they see that R symbol that means that they cannot land unless they have prior permission to land on those airports the r basically means restricted access to those private facilities and you'll find a whole bunch of these R symbols on all of the other sectional charts as well and they usually are connected to a private airport now if you pay attention to the east you're going to see Pine Island private airstrip now that does not have a letter r next to it or a symbol are next to it so does that mean I can go and land my plane on there without any prior permission well not necessarily you see not all private airports or restricted use airports are marked with the magenta R symbol and that might be because of the distance away from a major airport so there's no conflict but Pine Island airport is still a private restricted use Airport airport and if you ever plan to fly there you will need to get prior authorization from the airport management before you can land and the point is that not all private airports have an r with a magenta liner on it for restricted use so my status bar says that I'm still on symbols let's go after another one did you notice that Kera County Regional Airport and also Elizabeth City Regional both of them have these little tick marks around the airport symbols do you see that good these tick marks represent that there are fueling services at the airport now the only problem here is that they don't tell you what type of fuel is available but what the pilots can do is look at the chart supplement in this case they can download it directly from the FAA website and it includes information such as Runway declared distance information airport remarks and there it is service and fuel now you see it's providing both types of fuel Aviation gas 100 lowed and also jet a for turbine engines and all of this information allows you to connect the dots you become more versatile in your thinking because you understand exactly what those tick marks actually represent now I've changed my status Bo now we are on figure 21 Area 1 and we're going to be discussing altitude more importantly discussing the maximum elevation figure or if you want to just use the appropriate acronym it's MEF so what is an MEF you're asking well I'll tell you the MEF represents the highest elevation of any natural or or man-made structure in a specific area typically within a quadrant of a sectional chart now when I say quadrant I'm referring to latitude and longitude for a 30X 30 minutes or tick marks area and you can see very well that if I look at the number 28 then it is within a latitude and longitudinal quadrant and throughout all of the sectional charts that you have all of the figures you will see the same exact thing a big number with a small number to the right of it inside of a 30-minute by 30 minute quadrant and that is called an MEF now let me explain to you the details this number for the maximum elevation figure is very very simple to calculate and what I mean is that they have already calculated it for you you looking at them but on a part 107 exam they may give you the elevation of the highest natural or man-made structure and then they will want you to determine or figure out what the MEF value should be so here's how it works the first number or the biggest number is represented in thousands and the second number or the smaller number is represented in hundreds so if you're looking at the MEF on the right which says 26 what that means is that we're talking about 2,600 ft and that elevation or above that elevation is only where a manned aircraft can fly now here's the thing you see how I paused and I didn't tell you whether it's AGL or MSL well that's because I want to test your critical thinking and I'm going to tell you what the designation is for that by asking you a question if you were a pilot flying a plane and you needed to have some reference point that's consistent that doesn't change would you pick MSL or would you pick AGL now do you see why I asked you that question because if you answer that question correctly then you already have your answer on whether or not this should be MSL or AGL critical thinking enhancing your thought process so the answer to that is MSL because MSL is constant whereas AGL the ground level always changes so here's what they're going to try to do on the part 107 exam they're going to try to trip you up by giving you a number of the highest structure in a certain area or a certain quadrant and then you will see the multiple choice answers and you'll have to choose one now you can't guess this it's imperative that you know the correct answer and I'm going to show you how to do it now suppose within a 30 ° by 30° quadrant there is a mountain and that mountain is 2560 ft high and it is the highest structure within that quadrant what is the MEF value quick and easy you're going to laugh when you see this all you have to do is take the 2560 ft and add 100 ft to it that will put you at 2,660 FT and then round it off so the correct answer will be 2700 ft MSL or big 2 little 7 now do you see how simple that was practice on this a few times and I promise you you will not get this wrong on the exam now turn the page to figure 25 area 4 and my status bar is on airspace and the area we're going to be concerned about now is the airspace around Fort Worth Alliance afw Airport you can see that just Northwest of Dallas Forth Worth International now you can look at this and you can see just how congested it is so many things going on here but don't worry don't be afraid we're going to get you through this up until now I've been doing all of the work here showing you all of these details and all of these things that we need to know about right but now it's time for you to do some work get a pencil and paper I'm going to start asking you five questions and you're going to need to write the answers down on that paper and then after I'm going to give you all of the answers you can check yourself to see how you did [Music] okay so for all all of you who already know this video is a doover video of the video I uploaded previously before there was just a little bit of confusion and it was a little bit misleading and I wanted to make sure that the information that you're receiving is correct so that way you have all of the information necessary to pass this part 107 exam now being very transparent here with you I want you to know that I'm doing my best to try to give you the information accurately but sometimes due to time constraints the information is being rushed I want to be able to prioritize the way I'm presenting so that way you're getting the best information out of these videos that I'm uploading I'm always going to try to do my best for you and what I'm going to try to do now is basically take a break so stay tuned I'll be right back in 30 seconds okay so we're back I hope you were able to find all the correct answers but we're going to go over them anyway okay question number one what is the floor of the Class B airspace at Fort Worth Alliance afw Airport and the correct answer is 4,000 ft MSL you see it's indicated here on a sectional chart within that certain layer so if you had 4,000 ft MSL then you were correct next question what is the ceiling of Class D airspace at Fort Worth Alliance afw as indicated on the sectional chart there's a minus 30 inside of a blue box that indicates that class D airspace extends up to but does not include 3,000 ft MSL meaning that the ceiling is 2,999 Ft MSL and you can Mark that one as the correct answer if that's what you chose on your piece of paper next question what is the elevation of Fort Worth Alliance awf Airport as indicated on the sectional chart now for all of the airport information you will find this figure at the utmost bottom left of the information block so the correct answer is 722 ft MSL and for the last question when looking at the sectional chart for Fort Worth Alliance afw which frequency should a remote pilot use to obtain weather information well there are only two frequencies indicated here and I know the control tower frequency is not the correct answer so it will be Addis 126. 925 and if you answered all of these correctly then you should look in the mirror and give yourself a standing ovation and if you like the way that I formatted these questions then it would really help me if you give me a like And subscribe okay let's move on to the next one so now we're moving to figure 26 area 2 and this looks like something we haven't talked about right so what are we looking at looks like two eyeballs on a pray and mantis just joking this one we're going to get a two for two we're going to talk about moas and we're going to talk about restricted areas now you've seen these magenta colored hash marks on a lot of these sectional charts am I right and you're looking at one right now an Mo MOA stands for military operations area and if you look at the legend you will see the simple with the magenta hash marks and what you need to know about this is that moas are designed for military training and operations like air-to-air combat bombing practice military Maneuvers so as the FAA would probably say always consider this area as being hot now for the exam if they're asking you where the mo MOA is well you won't have a problem with that because most of them have Mo MOA listed within the actual area of the mo MOA or within the boundaries of the mo MOA you will see for example this says Devil's Lake East MOA very easy I'm pointing to it right now so now that you know what the purpose is of an MOA and what it looks like let's talk about the other that has a blue hash mark and this is called called a restricted area and if you remember earlier in the video we discussed a restricted area that was offshore three nautical miles from Virginia Beach remember that well this one is not near the water this one is definitely a landbased restricted area now in regards to the purpose restricted areas are designated for hazardous activities and I'll name a few live fire exercises missile testing and launches aerial combat training artillery ballistic missile testing radar and electronic jamming systems now do you really want to fly your drone in there you'll never get it back and I'm not finished yet chemical biological and radioactive testing and there are special forces training in there with tactical airlift Maneuvers this is not where you want to be but here's the deal an MOA and a restricted area are two different things in a restricted area civilian aircrafts including drones are not prohibited to fly unless they have prior authorization from the controlling agency often it will be the milit AR or the FAA so if you really really want to fly in that area well there only two words that I can give you good luck now in regard to Ana a civilian aircraft or a drone can fly in that area when the Moa isn't active and you probably will not know this information if it's inactive or active so you'll have to check your nms moas have a particular class of airspace and that's going to give you a clue as to how you can fly in those particular areas and you see I'm pointing to one of those areas that is located within an Mo MOA and guess what it's class G airspace there's nothing else there's no other designation so it's class G airspace uncontrolled but even though you do not need prior authorization to fly in this area you still need to keep in mind that you are a remote pilot under the watchful eye of the FAA and part 107 rules and regulations must be observed in order for you to maintain compliance with in the part 107 rules and regulations now another thing to pay attention to is when you're flying in these areas you will need to up your game a little bit you'll have to have much more situational awareness than you would have normally flying outside of these areas always remember that even though it appears to be safe and you can fly in class G airspace well anything can happen at any moment so the situation is always potentially hazardous okay we're back so go to figure 25 area 8 and what we're going to do now is probe around and look for symbols now go back to the information block let's see if you can find Dallas executive RBD and you should be actively practicing on how to look for these airports in your test supplement so I'm pointing to it right now in case you can't find it and what I'm touching on right now literally is the Addis frequency now what is that well Addis stands for automatic terminal information service now what this is is a continuous broadcast of essential information for pilots who are operating near an airport now the reason they set this up one of the reasons is because they wanted to reduce the workload that air traffic control usually gets so the information that's going to be provided will be for example the airport name weather information Runway information uh taxi and ramp information Air Traffic Control will be alleviated from providing all this information to the pilots because they have Addis and you're probably asking what is Addis is it a person is it a computer is it Santa's elf it is either a recording of a person's Voice or it may be computer AI generated and to give you an example of what it's going to sound like it'll be something like this Charlotte Douglas Airport International Information Charlie time 1350 julu wind 270 at 10 visibility 10 clear skies temperature 25 Doo 15 altimeter 29.92 arri expected Runway 18c departures Runway 18 L advice on initial contact you have information Charlie and you're probably wondering what the did he just say this is the information that Addis will give you and don't worry Pilots already know what all of this stuff means they get accustomed to hearing the information so they know what they're talking about just like you're getting accustomed to looking at all of these sectional charts so if on the part 107 exam they ask you well what is the service that's provided to help Air Traffic Control 24-hour broadcast uh to assist the pilots that are near an airport you already know I just told you Addis so now let's go to another symbol I'm having fun here so now we're looking at the letter H with a circle around it in magenta color this is considered as a Hort and there's another one that I see to the North Dallas CBD now these can be either public horts private horts of course if it's private you know you're going to need permission right Hospital horts and these Hospital horts are usually located near medical facilities medical centers emergency patient transport all that stuff now I'm going to say this to you if you're flying a drone near one of these hel ports you are going to need some careful planning and some strict adherence to the rules and regulations the last thing you want to do is crash that drone into a helicopter that's trying to land with a patient who's trying to get a heart transplant check your before you fly app make sure that you know the airspace that you're in make sure you're not in some restricted area and also make sure there's no temporary flight restrictions tfrs will get you in some big trouble so let's go back to down CBD Hort now to see how I moved my finger over to awos now what is that well since you're an expert with Addis at those bigger airports well AOS is what they use for the smaller heliports do you see how this is all starting to come together for you are you feeling good right now awas provides automated real-time weather updates which is crucial for horts especially when they are in areas with unpredictable weather you see unlike Addis which is commonly used for the larger operations or bigger airports more complex AOS is simple and it's suited for a smaller less congested area for a helicopter and I'm not going to do another voice impression like I did for Addis this is a long video I don't want to get burnt out so what the Hop Pilots are going to do is basically tune into the aw frequency that you're looking at in this case it's 1 35.42 this is going to give them the updated weather information so that way they can land safely so I just updated the status bar now for altitude let's stay on figure 25 area 8 do you know notice that to the left of the eightball or should I say to the west of the eightball that there are some obstacles now at this moment you're recognizing that this symbol is called an obstacle right it's in your Legend you can look at it but we're only discussing altitude here in regard to these obstacles now what you have to pay attention to is that each one of these obstacles has a vertical height value and it's given to you in two references either MSL the top number or AGL the bottom number in parentheses and what I want to do here is to relate this example I'm about to give you to a difficult part 107 question that I know that you will come across and if you don't go through this you're not going to be able to answer the question appropriately or correctly so pay attention take notes and even though my status bar indicates altitude the part 107 question is going to refer to airspace so here it is you're inspecting the towers that are south west of Dallas executive RBD airport what is the airspace that you would be operating in if you were flying the maximum allowable altitude so they're asking you for airspace but you have to know what the altitude is in order to determine the airspace and this is probably one of the most difficult questions that you will get in regard to this but I'm going to show you how to solve this equation step by step step number one identify the towers and their height the towers as you can see are nine statute miles Southwest of Dallas executive RBD and the tallest tower in the area is 2549 ft MSL or that translates to 1,731 Ft ago now step number two is to determine the maximum allowable altitude that my drone can fly under part 107 rules you can fly up to 400 ft above the highest structure and that is only if you're within 400 ft distance from that structure so look at the height in AGL at 1,731 FT and add 400 ft AGL to it that will equal 2,131 ft AGL the key thing to remember here is that you cannot add 400 ft MSL to the height of a structure the 400t rule is only based in AGL above ground level not MSL so step number three now is to identify the class of airspace of which I would be in in most areas Class E airspace starts at 1,200 ft AGL and extends all the way up to 17,999 Ft MSL so unless there's some other class of airspace that's around those towers for example Class B or Class C or class D then the only logical answer since I'm flying at 2,131 FT is that I am in class E airspace so Class E airspace is the answer to the question and if I wanted to convert this over to MSL for example what I would need to do is to take 2,131 ft AGL and add the ground elevation to it which I already know is 818 ft MSL and that would equal 2,949 ft MSL and I already know the question that you're going to be asking how did you know that the ground elevation was 818 ft MSL that's because that was provided to me when they gave me the elevations for the tower in MSL and AGL because all I needed to do was subtract 2549 ft MSL to 1,731 Ft MSL and that will give me a ground elevation of 818 ft MSL but here's the thing that's so confusing and crazy for the part 107 exam if they're asking you for the answer only in AGL then simply just add the 400 ft to 1,731 Ft for the above ground level of that Tower and if they're asking you for MSL then convert it by adding the ground elevation in MSL to it now let me be completely transparent at this point I thought that this question was the most difficult question because I could not conceive in my head that AGL and MSL could even mix in regard to numbers or calculations but a foot is a foot no matter how you slice it and what's so crazy and confusing about this whole thing is that I just went through the calculation and the conversion with you by adding the ground elevation to come up up with 2,949 ft MSL when all I really needed to do was to take 400 ft and add it to 2,549 Ft and it would have given me the same exact answer the missing piece of the puzzle here was the ground elevation that needed to be added to the AGL maximum allowable altitude in order to determine the maximum allowable altitude in MSL now to sum this whole thing up so you have a sense of reasonable Clarity these towers start at ground level and the height of the tallest tower in AGL ground level is 1,731 ft and you're allowed to fly 400 ft above that structure which will put you at the maximum allowable altitude or the legal altitude of 2,131 Ft AGL Class E airspace begins typically at 1,200 ft AGL so your flying above that so that puts you in class E airspace and you're not imposing or overlapping on any other airspace because the class B airspace that's directly above that the floor of that is at 3,000 ft MSL and in order to convert that so you know what MSL altitude you're at currently you would have to add your maximum allowable altitude of 2,131 Ft AGL to the ground elevation of where you're at referenced in MSL and the calculated value for the conversion over from AGL to MSL would put me at 2,949 FT MSL which will be about 51 ft below the floor of the Class B airspace that's currently over my head at 3,000 ft MSL and even though I explained this in detail it still does seem a little bit confusing doesn't it and that's because there is a conversion process that's going on in your head about AGL and how it relates to MSL but the key things to remember about this one thing is that class G airspace will begin at the surface and is always referenced at AGL whereas Class E airspace can be either referenced at AGL or MSL and does not typically start at the surface here's some additional information that will help you to see the entire picture Class E airspace is controlled but the level of control is generally less intense as compared to the more congested airspaces such as Class A Class B Class C and class D ATC still has control over Class E airspace but it's more flexible but nevertheless there still needs to be interaction with air traffic control to continue this Relentless Pursuit for General control of safety and navigation that's all I have for this video I've got more videos coming so you all stay tuned all right listen I hope you got something out of this video all of you who are taking your part 107 exam good luck May the force be with you you'll all do well if you just pay attention to all of the details I'll do my best to keep these videos coming for you until then we will see you on the next one