Transcript for:
Guide to FAA Part 107 Regulations

Hey everyone, my name is Matt Kendall and welcome to my Part 107 study guide. I hope this video helps better prepare you for your upcoming Part 107 exam. We have a ton of material to cover, but don't worry, I have designed this video to help make sure that you can follow along regardless if you know much about aviation or not. We're going to be going over everything from the basic rules and regulations of Part 107, as well as how to read sectional charts and learn just a little bit more about weather. So, every lesson...

that is going to be in this video you're likely going to be tested on when you go take your exam so for you to have the best chance of passing your part 107 exam it's going to be best that you watch this video all the way through first and then revert back to where you want to focus your studies to help better prepare now i've also designed this video to where we have some practice questions throughout the whole video itself so we'll go over those together and they're actual questions used in the faa exam Now these questions have been released to the public by the FAA, and this way you get a good idea on what to expect to better prepare for your exam. And it's likely too that you might see some of these sample questions in your official exam, but it's not always a guarantee because the FAA is just constantly trying to produce new questions to add to the part 107. So be very familiar with this course if you can. So with all that said, let's dive right into it shall we?

So So what is Part 107? Why is it called this? So the FAA, or the Federal Aviation Administration, has this book right here.

It's called the FAR-AIM. It's the Federal Aviation Regulations and Aeronautical Information Manual. If you're catching on, there are a ton of acronyms in the aviation industry, so just bear with me throughout the video. Now, this book, it contains all the rules and regulations the FAA implements, and if you scroll through the pages, you will find 14 CFR.

Part 107, which are all the rules and regulations pertaining to unmanned aircraft systems or what we call drones. So whenever we talk about the rules and regulations for drones, we are just simply referring to the topic based off of what the FAR aim has it labeled as, which is part 107. Now, do you need this book? No, you do not have to buy this book for your exam, but if for any reason you want a copy for yourself, I'll have a link in the description. It does have all the rules and regulations pertaining to Part 107 listed, and if you're thinking about getting your private pilot's license later on, this is definitely one of these books that you'll need for your studies. So feel free to go buy one if you'd like.

Now, to further explain Part 107, it is all the rules and regulations adopted by the FAA for civil operations so that you as a drone operator can fly your drone safely in the national airspace. regardless if you're flying for fun or for a profit. Now here's where this video comes in. The FAA is going to require that if you're going to fly your drone commercially for any form of compensation, they want you to be licensed by them. So if you're currently flying your drone for a profit without a PAR107 license, you can get yourself in trouble with the FAA.

Online the penalties can be $250,000 in fines or even jail time for three years. They're very severe penalties. But ultimately, it's just up to the FAA to decide what they're going to do with you if you're caught without a license. So who has to follow these rules?

So while recreational drone operators have similar guidelines, commercial drone operators have to abide by the rules and regulations of Part 107. So if you're flying recreationally, you're flying for fun. If you're flying commercially, you're most likely flying. for a profit and you're going to have to have a license from the FAA. Now what about if you're flying for something like tickets to a football game or a discount for a product of service, just an exchange like a barter. If you fly your drone for any type of compensation, even a barter, you're still required to be licensed by the FAA and the flight conducted would be considered commercial because it's an exchange of something for your time and service.

Same thing if you take aerial photos and video from your drone. If you flew recreationally when you took those pictures, that's great. But if you end up trying to sell them later on down the road online, it's now considered commercial by the FAA. No matter if you fly recreationally or commercially, you have to register your drone with the FAA.

It's a very simple process to register your drone if you haven't already. So just know you have to be 13 years or older. You have to be a legal resident in the United States or a U.S. citizen.

And your drone has to weigh between 0.55 pounds and 55 pounds. Once you've registered your drone, you'll be given a unique registration number that's going to be made visible on the outside of the drone. You can make a label for it, you can engrave it, or even just sharpie it on the drone where it can be seen by everybody.

And the website to register is right here on this slide as well as in the description. Now what about drones that are under the weight limit? So there are drones on the market that do in fact fall between the weight requirements of 0.55 pounds or 250 grams. So if your drone is below that weight you don't have to register with the FAA. However, if you're using that same drone for commercial work, the FAA still requires you to have a Part 107 license.

So another thing your drone has to have in order to be compliant with current FAA regulations is your drone has to have something called Remote ID. Basically what this is, it's a digital license plate for your drone that transmits a signal that can be tracked by anybody. Law enforcement, FAA, general public, and they use downloadable apps such as Drone Scanner or Air Centennial.

It can track everything. The drone's position, how high it's flying, and exactly your location where you're flying the drone from. If you have one of the latest drones on the market, then there's a good chance your drone's already got remote ID built into it and is already deemed compliant by the FAA.

Older drones, however, they're not going to have remote ID. You're going to need to purchase a separate module that you'll then attach to the drone and just register that with the FAA. Now that we've covered what Part 107 is and how to register your drone, here's just a little bit more info about the FAA exam.

So your exam is going to be conducted at an approved FAA testing facility. It's not offered at home or online at any given location. You'll be given two hours to answer 60 multiple choice questions, which can be on any of the topics that we cover in this video.

And the FAA can choose to test you more heavily on one topic over another. You have to pass the Part 107 exam. with a 70% or higher. If you fail to pass on the first attempt, you'll be allowed to take the exam again after 14 days. So two weeks, you'll be able to take it again.

To be eligible for the exam, you have to be 16 years or older. You have to be able to speak, read, and write English because the universal language for aviation is English, as well as be healthy both physically and mentally. So you can safely perform the drone operations under Part 107. Once you've successfully completed the Part 107 exam, you're going to fill out some more forms online and you'll be mailed your official Part 107 license. And from there, all you'll be required to do is recurrency training every 24 calendar months, two years, which you can do online at home for free on the FAA's website.

So once you've passed this exam, that's you're studying for currently. You do not have to take this exam again. You'll just be required to do recurrency training online. every two years.

Remote pilot responsibilities. So whenever you plan to conduct a flight with your drone, whether you are flying by yourself or with a group of people, you're considered the remote pilot in command or the PIC for short. This means that you're taking the responsibilities to ensure that you stay in compliance with all the rules and regulations of part 107. And it's quite obvious if you're conducting a flight by yourself, obviously you are the pilot in command. But if you have a crew assisting you, all the roles for each person need to be assigned before you go out and you fly the drone. So if you have a crew of three, then one of you needs to be designated as the PIC first.

When you conduct the flight, you can't pose a threat to anybody. People, property, and manned aircraft. So if you lose control of the drone and you crash into something, you as the PIC are going to be held reliable for the damages. for anybody or anything that your drone hits.

Now if you're a pilot in command and you need to relinquish controls for a moment for any reason at all during your flight, you are allowed to transfer the controls of the drone to another licensed drone operator if you have one on your crew. As I mentioned earlier, most drone operations can be conducted by yourself, but sometimes you may want to have some assistance, especially if you're not always able to keep a visual on the drone. So the FAA has a few roles that you can potentially assign to other people if you choose to have a flight crew.

For starters, and this is a must-have, it's the remote pilot in command. Again, this is somebody who takes all the responsibility of the flight operations and is in charge of maintaining the rules of part 107. Notice how it also states that the PIC has to be in possession of a remote pilot certificate. If you're conducting an operation that involves a crew to fly, then the FAA is going to want you to be licensed if you are the PIC.

Next is the visual observer. This is the most common role that you as the PIC will assign to somebody depending on the mission. But essentially they are your eyes in the sky. When you are unable to monitor the drone, the visual observer will monitor where your drone is throughout the flight and also communicate to you when your drone is going too far, it's about to hit somebody or something. Visual observers are a great resource to use when you can't monitor your own drone and you can even assign more than one visual observer if you like.

Now we have the person manipulating the controls. You as the pilot in command, you can assign another licensed drone operator to fly the drone for you. You're still in charge of the entire flight and there are responsibilities for maintaining those part 107 regulations, but personally you're not the one having to fly the drone.

And finally is the control station. Basically this definition is just referring to where you are controlling the drone from as well as what you're controlling the drone with. So your control station is basically your controller you use to fly the drone, and for some instances there are drones that may have multiple controllers.

Most commonly in the higher end video drones you have one person flying just the drone while another person is just controlling the gimbal and the camera built in. And that way they can capture the photos and the videos that they want easily. Seems a bit much, but sometimes splitting the workload is a lot of help.

Operating rules and limitations. So under part 107, FAA has limitations and restrictions for drones and their operations. So let's talk about the limitations of your drone first.

In order to be compliant with 107, there are two basic factors you have to remember. Weight and speed. For weight, your drone again has to be between 0.55 pounds and 55 pounds.

This is including everything on board when you launch the drone. I mentioned it earlier, but if your drone is under 250 grams, which is that.55 pounds, you do not have to register it with the FAA. If your drone weighs more than 55 pounds, then you need to apply for an exemption or a special airworthiness certificate that the FAA has in order to fly it legally.

Good chance you'll never have to apply for this exemption, but just know that it is an option. if you need it for a drone that's heavier than that. Now you have speed. So drones are restricted to a top speed of 100 miles an hour and that's it. So remember, weight that your drone is between 0.55 pounds and 55 pounds and you are restricted to 100 miles an hour top speed under part 107. Now I want you to remember this number right here 400. What does this number represent?

So whenever you are flying your drone You are legally allowed to fly up to 400 feet AGL in altitude. This is the restricted altitude set by the FAA because aircraft such as helicopters do in fact fly at altitudes slightly higher or lower than 400 feet AGL. Notice how it says 400 feet AGL. What does this acronym mean? AGL stands for above ground level.

There is also another acronym used to reference altitude known as MSL or means sea level. What's the difference? Above ground level means that we are measuring the altitude from the ground itself.

Mean sea level means that we are measuring the altitude from the top of the ocean, which is also referenced as the true altitude. So which one do we use? Well, it's important to understand the differences on the part 107 exam, because certain questions are going to refer to either MSL or AGL. So keep that in mind when you're answering questions relating to the altitude.

There are also visibility requirements in order for you to legally launch the drone. So the FAA states that you must have no more than three statute miles visibility in order to launch the drone. So you have a dense fog show up one day and you can't see but even five yards away from you, then you can't launch the drone because you can't maintain a clear visual line of sight. If there is a slight fog but you can still see more than three miles away from where you are, then you're good to go. You can fly the drone.

Now you might be surprised to hear this part, but there are separation requirements when you fly near clouds. If you're flying near a cloud, the rule is that you must fly 500 feet below the cloud and 2,000 feet horizontally from the cloud. And the reason is there are manned aircraft that fly through clouds all the time. So the FAA simply just wants you to avoid flying too closely to clouds at all times.

So 400 feet is our maximum altitude, 3 statute miles visibility in order to fly. 500 feet below the clouds and 2000 feet horizontally from the clouds. If at all you need to memorize these a little bit more, you can go back and review this part of the video as much as you need.

So anytime you need to, just take a peek at it. Now, what if we need to fly higher than 400 feet? Sometimes we might be called up to go inspect a radio tower, for example, that might be taller than 1200 feet.

But if we're only allowed to fly up to 400 feet, how do we get around this? So, When you need to fly higher than 400 feet to inspect a structure, such as a radio tower or building, the FAA has an exemption for the 400-foot limit, as long as the structure is in an area where you do not need to be given permission to fly by the FAA. This is known as controlled airspace. You are allowed to fly higher than 400 feet near the structure, as long as you maintain a 400-foot separation from that structure.

Now, you are also allowed to fly 400 feet above the top of the structure if needed. So if the radio tower stands 1200 feet tall, that means legally you can now fly up to 1600 feet in the air above that structure. Let's talk for a moment about who has the right of way when you're flying.

Simply put, aircraft are always going to have the right of way over drones. This includes airplanes, helicopters, gliders, so If you see an aircraft approaching where you're conducting your flight, you have to give way to that oncoming traffic. And the best way that I would suggest avoiding any oncoming aircraft is just descend to a much lower altitude.

If you have trees nearby, for example, where you're flying, I just like to simply drop below the tree line until the aircraft are out of the way, and then I can resume my flight as needed. In-flight emergencies. These can be anything from a battery fire to collision avoidance.

or even loss of control, anything that's going to cause harm to people below or in the air. Depending on the emergency, the first thing you should try and do is continue to maintain control of the drone while you are assessing the emergency. This is actually something that they teach you when you're training to become a private pilot.

Whenever something goes wrong, you always fly the airplane first and you'll assess the situation as you fly the airplane. Drones already have some safety features built into them. such as return to home if the drone loses signal or is very low on battery, but sometimes these features aren't going to be as effective depending on the emergency. You may be faced with situations where you need to act quickly and make a decision on spot.

If for any reason you and the manned aircraft are on a collision course, this is considered an in-flight emergency, so you need to perform any necessary maneuver to avoid collision. The FAA is going to allow you to deviate from part 107 regulations that are necessary to avoid a collision. But if you're contacted by the FAA in regards to the deviation you will have to send in a written report to the FAA explaining everything that happened during the flight. Battery fires.

I think this is pretty self-explanatory but the FAA just wants to make sure you're aware of it. The batteries we use on drones are highly flammable regardless if your drone runs off of lithium-ion or not. Whenever you are storing or preparing to use a battery for flight, it's always good to just make a simple check to see if the battery appears defective or damaged, if for any reason that you do suspect damage to a battery, or you have a battery catch fire while conducting a flight. Drone manufacturers should have guidelines on what to do.

Also, after each flight, manufacturers are going to recommend you do not recharge the battery until it is cooled down completely. because that can also cause damage to the battery. If you find the battery is no longer usable and you need to dispose of it, remember that lithium batteries can't just be thrown away in the trash because of how flammable they are.

So you'll need to find a facility that can properly dispose of these types of batteries. I know if you live in the US there's a store called Batteries Plus which for most of them they're going to dispose lithium batteries for you, but if you know other places that you would recommend disposing batteries in the US or abroad, I'd encourage you to share those recommendations down in the comments below. Damage to people or property. If you fly your drone one day and crash it into a person or a building for example, the FAA is going to want you to report it to them and the damages have to be estimated at $500 or more.

This only applies to damages caused by the drone. If your drone gets totaled and that's worth more than 500 bucks, it doesn't matter. The FAA is saying If your drone causes more than $500 worth of damages to somebody or something, then you need to report it. An example, you crash your drone into somebody and they go to the hospital.

If the medical bills are over $500, then you have to report it to the FAA. Let's take a moment to look at some sample questions you might see on your exam. Again, the FAA might have something similar to these, but these questions have also been publicly released by the FAA. So you may see them, you may not.

First one, according to 14 CFR part 107, a small UAS is an unmanned aircraft system weighing what? And which of these operations must comply with 14 CFR part 107? For the first question, because it's a small UAS, it has to weigh less than 55 pounds. But again, small UAS can weigh between 0.55 pounds, which is 250 grams, and 55 pounds. Then we have the second question, which is A.

because the definition of Part 107 is the adoption of civil small UAS operations in national airspace. So civil operations is the answer. After receiving a Part 107 remote pilot certificate with a small UAS rating, how often must you satisfy recurrent training requirements? And who is ultimately responsible for preventing a hazardous situation before an accident occurs? I'm going to give you a moment to answer these.

pause the video for now if you need more time. Okay, here are the answers. So once you earn your Part 107, you have to get recurrent every two years or every 24 calendar months, and the remote pilot in command is always responsible for everything that happens during a commercial drone operation.

Flying drones over people. So according to the FAA, you cannot fly a drone over people. unless you meet one of these requirements listed here. The individuals that you're flying over are directly involved in the operation. They're under a covered structure or inside a stationary vehicle that can protect them from any harm by your drone, or if your drone operation can satisfy requirements from at least one of the four categories.

So here are the four categories right here for you. Now I'm going to go over these briefly so you can understand them better, but all of these categories are actually available for you to read more in depth online or in the far aim if you choose to purchase one of those books. So here's the first one, category one.

You can fly over people if your drone weighs less than 0.55 pounds but your propellers cannot be exposed to where it can cause siserations to people so you need to have prop guards on the drone. Your drone also has to have remote ID and you're not allowed to hover over people. So that's category one.

Categories two and three, they're similar but have one specific difference. Your drone weighs more than 0.55 pounds but does not have an airworthiness certificate. And in order to determine if it's going to be a category two or three, it'll be dependent upon the amount of kinetic energy that your drone delivers upon an impact. So a category two, it's going to be 11 foot pounds of kinetic energy, while category three is 25 foot pounds of kinetic energy.

Also, in order to fall under category 2 or 3, you must meet the means of compliance with the FAA and be listed on a current declaration of compliance, which you would have to go to the FAA and submit requests for those two compliance documents. Then there's category 4. Your drone weighs more than.55 pounds, but your drone must have an airworthiness certificate and operate under an approved flight manual with the drone's operating limitations. Okay, so after I filmed this entire video and started editing it, the FAA announced that they were making the process of flying over people a lot easier. Now, that doesn't mean they've changed any of the rules we've gone over, so continue to review what we've already covered for your exam for now, but just so you're aware, if you're wanting to conduct drone operations over people with your drone, All you have to do is follow all the requirements listed on the screen.

First, submit a waiver to the FAA. This waiver can be found on the FAA Drone Zone website. I would suggest trying to submit this waiver well ahead of time if you can because it may take a while for them to approve your request. Once your request is approved, you'll need a visual observer present as well as mount prop guards and anti-collision lights on your drone if they don't have them already.

Your drone has to have remote ID. and your drone, if it weighs more than 0.88 pounds or 399 grams, it's going to need an ASTM parachute, which at the time of making this video, I know not every drone on the market has one of these available quite yet, but I'm sure they will very soon. If this is a bit confusing or too much info to take in from flying a drone over people, again, feel free to rewind and watch this again, because what I found when I studied for this part of the exam, The study guide I had really did not go over the four categories, so I had one or two questions on my exam that kind of stumped me a bit. They were talking about the categories one and three, but I wanted to at least share a brief idea of what these categories are so you're not going to miss any questions either. Flying your drone from a car or a boat.

So you are allowed to fly your drone from a moving car or boat. However, it has to be conducted in a sparsely populated area, so few to no people at all. You have to maintain visual line of sight as well as constantly communicate with your crew.

So your visual observers are going to be the ones responsible to keeping an eye on your drone. You can't fly the drone recklessly and the person flying the drone is also not driving the car. It has to be operated by a passenger of the car or the boat.

Also I want to mention that you can't conduct this type of operation from an actual aircraft. So no flying drones while you're flying in an airplane. as well.

Privacy and payloads. So again, you should never fly your drone recklessly at all in any way, and you're not allowed to drop any kind of payload from your drone as well. Also, you want to avoid flying over people that are not participating in your operation, avoid getting in the way of any main aircraft nearby, and don't overload your drone beyond its capabilities. So don't add something to the drone that's going to be too heavy for it to fly safely.

Now we are allowed to deliver cargo with our drones, but there is a catch. Your drone can only weigh less than 55 pounds and that is the weight of the drone plus the cargo combined. You have to perform the operation within the state that you're flying it in and you cannot drop the cargo from the drone in a hazardous manner. Of course you also have to maintain a visual line of sight and these are all the same rules and regulations Amazon, Walmart, they're trying to sort this out with the FAA. so they can deliver goods to drones, but so far even now it's an uphill battle at the moment.

When you receive your part 107 license in the mail and then you end up moving to a different address later on, you need to notify the FAA within 30 days that you've changed addresses. Otherwise your license is going to be disqualified. Lastly we need to cover before we start getting into the more complex stuff you'll need to know, drones and alcohol, as well as drugs obviously, do not mix in any regard. So if you decide to drink any alcohol, no matter how much or how little you drink, you have to wait eight hours before you can operate the drone.

Same goes for your crew members, such as your visual observers. If you have a blood alcohol concentration of 0.4% or higher, you can't fly your drone. You can't take any drugs. It's going to affect your performance overall. If you refuse to comply with any drug or alcohol tests, your license can be revoked for a year or be suspended or revoked altogether.

Crew resource management. So the FAA is a big advocate to making sure the people you choose are both physically and mentally able to perform their duties during an operation. CRM should always be part of every aspect of your operation regardless. If you find that someone you plan to assign as a visual observer, for example, does not appear physically or mentally capable, They might be drunk or having a mental breakdown for whatever reason. You should replace them with somebody else prior to the operation.

This also applies to you as well because sometimes all it takes is one person to cause issues during your flight and if your crew mentions something about your physical or mental state, you may also want to consider rescheduling the operation until you and other members of your crew are in good shape. So let's review some of the risk factors the FAA might mention on your exam. Hyperventilation. This is a physical factor because someone who is hyperventilating is breathing heavily and very fast.

It's not something that goes away quickly and this reduces carbon dioxide levels in the body. An old technique that's used to treat this is the brown paper bag. Have the person breathe through the bag just to help increase those carbon dioxide levels.

Fatigue. This is someone who has a lack of sleep. Someone who is fatigued might lack the ability to stay alert. or make quick rational decisions during an operation. Drugs and alcohol.

We've already gone over this, but basically if anybody has had a drink or taken drugs they aren't supposed to, you need to replace that person with someone else prior immediately. Personality risk factors. The first one is impulsivity.

This is someone that wants to get things done quickly without any form of planning involved. If you find yourself rushing things too quick, then you should slow things down. Think things through and plan accordingly in more detail so you don't run the risk of hurting the operation. Invulnerability. This is someone that thinks nothing bad will happen to them no matter what they do.

This can be a risky type of personality to have, especially if someone is performing a drone flight where a lot of people and other obstacles are involved. The last thing you want is someone flying a drone that thinks they'll be fine no matter what, but then something bad does in fact happen. Macho.

This is a person that tries to stand out and prove they're the best. Many people with this personality can be from the most experienced drone operators to the least experienced. So if you have someone that thinks they know it all or can do it all, I would advise finding somebody else to take their place because you want your crew to work together, not have someone try to prove everything wrong and ruin the operation. Anti-authority. This is someone who cares less about the rules.

They're going to break the rules and get what they want without thinking twice about the consequences of their actions. It's another bad personality trait to have on your crew. And finally, there is resignation. Someone who accepts that whatever happens, happens. They don't care what outcome happens to them or the operation you're conducting if something does go wrong.

All of these risk factors we talked about are very important to consider because you want a physically and mentally stable crew helping you conduct your drone operation. If at all you find somebody on your crew shows signs of any of these risk factors we talked about, pull them aside, replace them with somebody else until further notice. You do not want anybody on your crew causing an issue if something goes wrong. Essentially what I just covered is all the main rules and regulations that you're gonna want to review for the exam and I know it's probably a ton of information to process in one sitting but hopefully if you need to review anything specific, I have everything divided out for you on the timeline to help make things easier for you if you need to review anything else at all. National airspace system.

This is probably one of the more complicated topics a lot of people struggle with because the FAA requires you to know the different classes of airspace, as well as answer questions that involve you having to use a sectional chart during your exam. I will say it's going to seem a bit daunting at first, but it starts to make more sense as you review everything and answer some sample questions that involve using the sectional charts. There are two types of airspace.

You have controlled airspace, and then you have non-controlled airspace. If you're wanting to fly in controlled airspace, that means you're going to need permission from air traffic control prior to launching your drone. If you want to fly in non-controlled airspace, then you don't have to ask permission by AGC at all. Now the airspace is broken up into six classes starting with class A airspace all the way to class G airspace.

There's not a class F in the United States but if you go over to Europe they actually have a class airspace over there. In aviation we like to refer to the phonetic alphabet so that way we don't confuse certain letters that sound similar over the radio such as B for bravo or P for papa. You do not need to memorize the entire phonetic alphabet for the exam, but if I were to suggest anything to you, I would suggest just knowing at least letters A through G, because sometimes the test questions may decide to say class delta instead of just saying class D.

So I'm going to try and keep repeating those letters throughout this part of the video to help you memorize them just a little bit more. If we go back to the previous slide, you'll notice classes alpha through echo are part of controlled airspace. Class Golf is the only class of airspace that is uncontrolled. So if you plan to fly your drone and you find that you're located within Class G, then you don't need to request permission from air traffic control at all. So just go fly in Class G as much as you want.

Let's break down each of the classes of airspace starting with class A or class alpha airspace. This is the only class of airspace that is not on the sectional chart because it starts high above the ground at an altitude of 18,000 feet MSL. This is the class of airspace that you only fly in when you travel on a commercial airliner because this class of airspace starts from 18,000 feet and goes as high as 60,000 feet. Class B or class bravo airspace This is the airspace you find surrounding some of the busiest airports such as Atlanta-Hartsfield or LAX. On a sectional chart, it's going to vary on shape and size.

And when you look at Class Bravo from a side view, it looks like an upside down wedding cake. Now, when we take a look at the Class Bravo on a sectional chart, it's identified using solid blue lines. Taking a closer look at this sectional chart, you can make out the blue lines and if I desaturate everything, Except the blue, you should be able to see those lines just a little bit better.

I'm going to leave this up for just a moment so you have time to see this a little closer. Again, Class Bravo Airspace is going to have various layers stacked on top of each other, and it's different at every airport. Now in Class Bravo Airspace, you'll see these numbers stacked on top of each other like a fraction. And what these numbers indicate is the altitude that this section of Class B starts at.

That's the lower number. and how high in altitude the section goes up to, that's the top number. Whenever you read these numbers on a sectional chart, a rule of thumb to keep in mind is you need to add two zeros to the end of those numbers in order to see what the actual altitudes are.

So for this example right here, the 30 on the bottom is indicating 3000 feet, while the top number, the 100, is actually indicating 10,000 feet. Class C or Class Charlie airspace is used around airports that don't see as much traffic as Atlanta Hartsfield or JFK airport, but it still requires air traffic control assistance. On a sectional chart, it's going to be identified as two solid magenta lines.

Here's what it looks like on the screen. And if we take away the saturation again, here's what it looks like with just the magenta on the screen. Again, it's similar to an upside down wedding cake. However, it's mainly composed of two cylinders that are going to create an inner and outer core. If we look at the inner core, the inner core of Class Charlie goes as far as five nautical miles and starts from the surface all the way up to 4,000 feet AGL.

Let's take a look at the outer core. This outer shell is twice as far at 10 nautical miles, starts from an altitude of 1200 feet all the way up to 4,000 feet AGL. I do want to mention there's also an outer area which is going to be 20 nautical mile radius outside of these cores. And it offers vertical coverage as well. So if you're asked what the typical radius of Class C airspace is, you might want to say 10, but it's actually 20 nautical miles.

Now here's what it looks like next to Class Bravo if we were to compare the different airspaces so far. Class D or Class Delta airspace. This class of airspace extends from the surface all the way up to 2500 feet AGL. It can have multiple airports inside it and has a normal radius of 4 nautical miles around airports. On a sectional chart it's depicted in blue as well, but it's distinguished as solid blue dash lines as you can see on the sectional chart, and also it shows a number inside a bracket to indicate the altitude it extends up to.

So in this case the class delta extends from the surface all the way to 3500 feet AGL depicted in this sectional. Remember, when you look at these numbers on a sectional chart, add two zeros to the end of it to get your altitude reading. And for visual reference, here's the side view again of Class E airspace compared to all the other airspaces we've covered so far. Class E or Class Echo airspace, where it begins is going to vary.

It can start either at 700 or 1200 feet, and sometimes it can start at surface level. It's mostly going to be at airports where it doesn't have a control tower. but has instrument approaches for manned aircraft. And what that means is these are airplanes that are flying into an airport that are not looking out the window to see where the runway is.

Yes, it's true. They're using a more advanced level of flying that is used to fly through clouds and the pilots are mainly relying on their instruments to guide them through. Now at altitudes between 14,500 and 17,999 feet is going to be class echo airspace So if we look at the chart again from the side view, all these gaps for the most part that are between the other classes of airspace are considered class echo.

Finally, there's Class G, or Class Golf airspace. This is the only airspace you do not have to get clearance by ATC to fly your drone in. It can start from the surface and go all the way up to the base of controlled airspace that overlays it, which can vary between 700 feet to 1200 feet. Now, on the far left of this chart that you're seeing right here for Class Golf, that goes as high as 14,500 feet. You'll see airspace like this mainly out in Alaska or other western parts of the US, but what you really need to know for the exam is that Class G will be from the surface to 700 feet or 1200 feet depending on what class or controlled airspace is overlapping you.

Hopefully this introduction to airspace wasn't too bad for you, so let's do some practice questions to find out what is required when operating in Class B airspace and according to 14 CFR Part 107, How may a remote PIC operate an unmanned aircraft in Class C airspace? Let me give you a moment to pause the video and let you figure these out if you want. Both of these are basically going to be the same answer. So you need clearance from ATC in order to fly in any controlled airspace.

This is the most important thing that you need to remember when you're dealing with controlled airspace. Now let's try and look at a few sectional charts. Refer to this sectional chart.

What airspace is Hayward Executive in? And refer to this sectional chart. The airspace overlaying and within 5 miles of Barnes County Airport is what? When you take the Part 107 exam, they're going to present you some sample sectional charts for you to look at and answer questions like these. So the first one, probably going to be a little bit more complicated since we just went over everything, but let's break it down just a little bit more.

For starters, the question tells us to refer to this sectional chart and look at area 6. You'll see the reference numbers are marked by a red dot with the number inside. So that way you have an easier time finding the area of this sectional chart they want you to focus in on. I'm going to go ahead and zoom into area 6 for you so you can get a closer look.

For this question, I'm going to start by finding the airport information so I know I've found the airport that I am looking for. After that... I should see the airport marker next to the airport information for Hayward Executive.

On this chart it looks like a blue dot, and the two lines in the middle of it are the runways for that airport. The way you see the runways depicted on a sectional chart is exactly the way that they're going to be laid out and oriented in real life. If you look just above the airport marker to the right we have a bracketed number, which means this airport is in Class D or Class Delta airspace. If you look even closer, you'll see the dashed blue lines as well with the airport close to the middle of it.

I went ahead and outlined it more clearly so you can see it just in case you needed a better visual on it. So the answer again is Class D airspace. Now let's look at another sectional chart. Refer to this sectional chart.

The airspace overlaying and within five miles of Barnes County Airport is what? If we zoom in on Area 5, we'll see the Barnes County Airport is in Class C airspace. But we're asked what the airspace is within 5 miles. And if you look at the space surrounding the airport, we don't see anything that indicates other controlled classes of airspace. So in this case, the answer is going to be Class G airspace or Class Gulf airspace.

Anytime you see the sectional chart appear like this, it's going to indicate to you that it is uncontrolled airspace. But let's break down sectional charts a bit more now. because there are some other components that you're going to need to look out for besides controlled airspace on a sectional chart. Let's look at prohibited areas. Prohibited areas are going to be areas that are mainly protected for national security.

You're going to find these at surrounding government buildings, such as the White House, for example. Some prohibited areas do have times of the day that you can fly there, but most of the time they're going to be off limits to you because most prohibited areas are active 24-7. Next is restricted areas.

These are going to be identified with this distinct blue pattern and what exactly is going on in a restricted area? It can be anything from guided missiles to artillery. So if you need to fly in a restricted area, you need to get permission or fly when you know the restricted area is not active. Some restricted areas do have specific times of the day that you can fly through and you can find that info on the back of a sexual chart by referencing the number assigned to that area. Next are warning areas.

They are the same as restricted areas except the difference is that they are in international airspace. They're mainly designed to warn you of potential danger, but it won't limit you from flying through those areas. Again, if you want to play it safe, you can check the back of a sexual chart or look up the info online to see if any of these warning areas have set times of the day that you can fly through there safely without getting in the way.

Alert areas. These are areas that you're going to find larger volumes of aircraft that are conducting training flights. There was actually a time I captured some aerial photos for a piece of land that a real estate agent was looking for and it was located right inside an alert area that was constantly being occupied by helicopters.

I actually have a photo of it. Here is what I took. This is the air traffic that I had to deal with that day. You are allowed to fly in an alert area, but you have to use caution and avoid other aircraft that are in the area.

So in this instance, I had to stop what I was doing, and I dropped my drone to an altitude of over 160 feet just so I was able to be out of the way. And when the area was clear again, I just went back to flying and completed the job. Military Operating Areas. These are to help keep military activity separate from aircraft that are flying under Instrument Flight Rules or IFR.

Pilots who are flying their aircraft using only their instruments and not looking out the window. You should always use caution flying through these areas and you should get any updated traffic advisories from the agency in charge of these MOAs. Military training routes. If you look at a sectional chart here there are lightly faded blue lines and for this particular chart they are labeled with these numbers and letters. Other MTRs can be labeled differently than this but they'll look the same on a sectional chart.

What's important to understand about these routes is aircraft flying along these routes. can fly at much faster speeds, and some NTRs are designed to either have visual only flying or IFR flying. But if you wanted to check on the status of these routes, you could contact the radio station listed on the chart, but for us there's a very small chance you would ever have to do this at all. Temporary flight restrictions or TFRs.

So these are designed to temporarily restrict aircraft from entering designated areas for things such as sporting events, disaster sites, or even when higher up government officials such as the president travel to various airports. So if you see a TFR where you are planning to fly your drone, you're going to have to wait for the TFR to expire before you can fly. Remember how I mentioned earlier you could face a lot of fines and jail time for not having a 107 license? There's definitely consequences if you try to fly your drone in an active TFR.

So be smart and wait for this TFR to expire before you go fly. National parks. Regardless if you're wanting to fly recreationally or commercially, you are not allowed to fly in a national park. These are protected for many reasons, and if you're caught flying a drone in a national park, you could be fined up to $5,000 and or put in jail for six months. If you have a valid reason to fly a drone in a national park, you can apply for a special use permit.

Don't really know exactly how to go about this, but there are is a legal path for you to try and be allowed to fly your drone in a national park. On a sectional chart it's going to look like this. It has a solid blue line with blue dots.

These are going to be your protected areas that you're not going to be allowed to fly in. Let's learn how to read some of the information about an airport because there will be instances your exam might ask for information about certain airports. So for starters, besides the blue and magenta representing a class of airspace, They can also tell you if the airport has a control tower or not. Airports with control towers that underlie classes B through E are going to be labeled in blue. If it doesn't have a control tower, it's going to be labeled in magenta.

Now let's break down some airport information that you'll see on a sectional. Here we have the name of the airport, and in this case it's Waco Regional Airport. Next to that is the airport identifier, which in aviation we normally put a K in front of it.

because it is part of the contingent United States, and that's how you plug it into an aircraft GPS for navigation. CT 119.3 is the control tower frequency. If this airport did not have a control tower, it would say either AWOS or ASOS with a frequency number.

The solid blue star means the control tower has operating hours that can be found on the chart supplement or online. The C next to that means CTAF or common traffic advisory frequency. When the control tower is closed, the tower frequency of 119.3 is now under CTAF, which you would use to announce your position on the ground or in the air so that other aircraft nearby are always aware that you're in the area. ATIS123.85 is your automated terminal information service.

You would tune in to this frequency to get weather reports. This is going to tell you everything from the winds, landing and departing runways, everything a pilot needs to be aware of just ahead of time. Below that is the number 516. This is your airport elevation. The capital L with an asterisk means the airport has part-time lighting operations. The number 71 is giving you information on the longest runway available in hundreds of feet, and the frequency 122.95 is the Unicom frequency, which is used mostly for fixed-base operations, or FBO for short.

They are the ground service provider that can offer fuel to aircraft and taxi services if needed. Here are a few questions. Which is true concerning the blue and magenta colors used to depict airports on sectional charts, and under what condition if any, may remote pilots fly through a restricted area? Go ahead and pause the video if you want more time to answer these questions on your own. Remember that if airport information on a sectional chart is blue, that means the airport has a control tower.

If it's magenta, that means it does not have a control tower. For the other question, restricted areas you can fly in so long as you get proper authorization first. Here's two more for you. Refer to this figure. The chart shows a gray line with VR1667, VR1617, VR1638, and VR1668.

Could this area present a hazard to the operations of a small unmanned aircraft? And refer to this airport, which frequency would be used as a common traffic advisory frequency to monitor the airport traffic? If we look at figure 32, you can see the light gray here.

Whenever it starts as VR, means it's military training route that is under visual flight rules. VFR, if it says IR, that means it falls under instrument flight rules IFR. If it has a four digit number, means the training route will be at or below 1500 feet AGL.

If it's three digits, means the training route is above or below 1500 feet. So because there's four digit numbers, that means there is a potential hazard for us if we fly a drone in this area because military aircraft might be flying at or below 1500 feet. Figure 54, the information we are looking at for CTAF frequency.

Looking at this question, again, notice how the multiple choice options for the question show both the 135.075 and 122.8 frequencies. That's intentional. Remember, the letter C right here tells us what?

That the control tower is not always open. and switches over to CTAP when the tower is closed. And we want to use the frequency info next to that letter C, so 122.8 is the answer.

Let's talk about topography for a moment, because most likely you're going to have questions on this for your part 107 exam. So if we look at a globe, we can find coordinates for specific locations using lines of latitude, which go horizontally, east and west, and longitude, which go vertically, north and south. Lines of latitude start at the equator, which starts out at 0 degrees, and this is the lateral line that goes through the middle of the globe, separating it into the northern and southern hemispheres. Starting with the equator and go all the way to the north or south pole, those lateral lines are labeled in degrees at 0 all the way to 90 degrees at the north or south pole. For the lines of longitude, they're also labeled in degrees, and its starting point of 0 is called the prime meridian.

and it's located in Greenwich, England. This line of longitude is going to separate the globe into the eastern and western hemispheres. If we look closely on this sectional chart you're gonna see lines of 35 degrees latitude and 101 degrees longitude.

Now I've gone ahead and outlined those lines in red for you to get a better visual. Now notice that both lines have tick marks on them. We use those tick marks for measuring purposes to subdivide degrees. into smaller increments called minutes, which are actually going to be used to measure the distance, not time.

Each degree is going to be equivalent to 60 minutes like you see here, where we go from 100 degrees longitude on the right of the chart and then it turns into 101 degrees longitude on the left of the chart. That distance in total is 60 minutes. If we take the first tick mark pointed out by the red arrow, that point is read as latitude of 35 degrees One minute north. Now this tick mark is latitude of 34 degrees 55 minutes north.

At first glance it doesn't look like it because we're zoomed in really close, but if we were to zoom out you can see the 34 degrees starts and we count the tick marks all the way to that same coordinate and we're going to get the 34 degrees 55 minutes north. Let's look at a sample question referred to this figure. What airport is located approximately 47 degrees 9 minutes north latitude in 94 degrees 38 minutes west longitude, Walker Mooney, Lily Lake, or Park Rapids.

Now obviously this is going to be too small for you to try and do on your own, so I've already gone ahead and outlined it for you. Starting where the 47 degrees latitude intersects 94 degrees longitude, we count the tick marks. Every 10 tick marks you'll see they make a tick mark that is much larger to help you count faster, but if you had a larger image of this sectional chart, The Walker Mooney Airport is the answer. It's 47 degrees, 9 minutes north, and 94 degrees, 38 minutes west, approximately.

That's the type of question I remember having on my Part 107 exam, and it's very likely that you might see one of these as well. I have some recommended practice exams for you to buy off of Amazon that include sample charts for you. If you need to answer these types of questions, you might be asked. So feel free to purchase those down in the description below. Okay, now we're going to go into some airport operations.

So why do we need to know anything about airports? Because even though you're not going to be allowed to fly a drone near or on the airports in the US, you can request permission by ATC and the FAA. If the airport is in uncontrolled airspace, you still need to get permission from the airport so they can issue a NOTAM, which is a notice to airmen that tells pilots that there's activity happening that they need to be aware of when flying in or out of that airport. If you request to fly a drone on airport property and it's approved, they're gonna want to make sure that you understand how airport operations work so you don't just fly your drone where you aren't supposed to, okay?

Flying a drone in the airport does not mean that you can fly it wherever and however you want. Let's start with the traffic patterns. If you've ever watched planes take off and land at airports, there is a standard traffic pattern that is used.

If you watch air traffic at a much smaller airport, You'll get a better idea on how this works in watching the planes depart and land. So here is our basic traffic pattern that we use. Assuming this airplane is going to stay in this traffic pattern, when it departs the runway it is now entered the departure leg of the traffic pattern. From there the airplane makes a turn into what's called a crosswind leg, followed by the downwind leg. Now the aircraft is going to be parallel to the runway.

The final two turns of the traffic pattern are known as a base and a final. Depending on the airport, aircraft might be in a standard left-hand pattern or in some cases it might go into a right turn or a non-standard pattern. The pattern can depend on several factors, but for our purposes the traffic pattern can go standard or non-standard. When an aircraft enters the pattern for landing, it will normally enter the pattern at a 45 degree angle from that downwind leg.

In some cases there is an additional leg for this pattern which is known as an upwind leg and it's located on the opposite side of the downwind. So the only time you may actually see the upwind leg being used is when an aircraft has to abort a landing to avoid a collision with another aircraft that is in the pattern or on the runway. When an aircraft is departing an airport, it can depart the pattern either going straight out or at a 45 degree angle.

Now the altitude for this pattern is going to vary, but most commonly you might see this pattern start at an altitude of 1000 feet. If the airport has a control tower this pattern is going to vary. Aircraft might be told to fly straight in or straight out. They may follow the standard pattern, so it's important that you pay attention to where you are seeing aircraft entering and departing the airport every chance you can.

If you find yourself in an airport with a control tower, the airport is going to be divided into two different areas. A movement area and a non-movement area. Non-movement areas are parts of an airport where you do not need to communicate with the tower at all.

You can actually go around the non-movement area as much as you please. And these are going to be the parts of the airport such as your ramps, aprons. Movement areas, however, are going to be parts of the airport where you do need to make contact with the tower.

Because movement areas... or your taxiways and runways where aircraft are active. On the ground, the marking that is used to identify the boundary between these areas is a solid yellow line with a dashed line like this.

If you're on the side where the line is solid, that means you are in the non-movement area and you need to contact a tower to get clearance to cross that line. If however you are on the dashed side, you're in the movement area. So once you've crossed back into the non-movement area, you will not be allowed to cross that boundary again without clearance from the tower. Let's talk about taxiways.

These are what aircraft use before and after a flight to navigate around the airport. You'll know if you're on a taxiway when you see a yellow center line just like this one. Some airports they may have just the center line, others may have edge markings like this right here.

Just note taxiways are painted with yellow lines. Here's a very important marking. This is known as a hold short line. These are going to be located at any intersection where the taxiway and the runway are meeting. The rule is that when you approach a hold short marker and the two solid lines are in front of you first, they are like for this aircraft right here, that means you are not allowed to cross this hold short marker until you have been given clearance by the tower.

If you're approaching this marker from the opposite side where the dash lines are in front of you first, you do not need a clearance. You're allowed to cross because the dash lines indicate you are clearing the active runway. Now where I've seen people get mixed up on a part 107 exam is they look at this marker and get it mixed up with the other marker that we just showed you for movement and non-movement area. Just remember that a hold short marker is going to have two sets of solid and dash lines.

The boundary marker is only going to have one solid and dash line. Runways. This is what aircraft use to take off and land. Runway markings are always in white, and this is a very simplistic version of a runway that you would typically see at smaller airports, but larger airports where runways are much longer and wider are going to look like this. You can see we have various markings from a displaced threshold all the way to aiming points.

Now how do runways get their numbers? The numbers on a runway are based on the direction they are facing, their magnetic heading. If we look at a compass right here for example, both 0 and 360 indicate north.

There's no other number beyond 360, which is why you don't ever see runway numbers go past 36. Look at this runway here. In this diagonal example, the end of this runway is lying on a heading of 220 and 040. The numbers rounded to the nearest 10 degrees, so these runways are going to be runways 22 and 04. At first glance, the runway numbers look like they're backwards. They're wrong.

It's actually correct. It's not a mistake, so let me give you a better visual to understand this. If you were to be flying into an airport, landing on runway 22, like you see here, the heading toward that runway is going to be 220. It's all based on the direction you're flying towards that is designating the runway number.

Same thing if we use the other runway from this example. If we were landing on runway 27, we are on a heading of 270. Even though we're approaching this runway from the east, our runway and heading of 270 indicates that we are going west. Hopefully this is being explained good enough for you to understand, but if you're still stuck on it, the next few sample questions that we're going to be going over are going to talk about this a little bit more, so hopefully that'll help. Some airports are going to have multiple runways that are parallel to each other.

In this case, the runway numbers will be exactly the same, however they are designated as left, center, or right. Many airports take advantage of parallel runways because it increases runway capacity. Atlanta-Hartsfield uses parallel runways for the same reason. You can get more air traffic in and out faster with runways that are going in the same direction.

One runway can be used for takeoffs. while the other runways are used for landings. I'm going to leave this slide up for you just to look over it because these are all the types of signage you can expect to see at an airport.

Everything listed goes into more detail, but let's break this down just a little bit more by what type of signs they are. So the first five signs are known as mandatory instruction signs. They are going to have a red background with white markings like you see right here next to these arrows.

They are commonly seen near entrances to a runway, critical areas, or prohibited areas. Next set of signs. These are location signs which are going to be black with yellow markings and a yellow border around them.

These signs are used to identify a taxiway or a runway location as well as tell you where the boundary for that runway is. When there's a location sign for a runway you'll see that hold short marker we talked about next to this sign. It's also used to tell you where an ILS system is located, which is an instrument landing system, or any critical areas on the airport property. The next sign you're only going to see on runways, this is a runway distance remaining sign. So when you land an aircraft on a runway, you'll start to see these numbers appear as you run out of usable runway.

Next two signs are boundary signs. Essentially these are designed to help enhance boundary markers that are painted on the taxiway. You're going to see these from time to time, but they are very helpful to pilots flying aircraft that are much taller like a 747 or an A380. The last two of these signs have two different names to them, even though they both use a yellow background with black markings.

The first ones are going to be directional signs. These signs can be found on runways or taxiways and are used to help pilots find runway exits and other taxiways to navigate around the airport. The other is a destination signs and these are called destination signs because they are designed to lead you to where you want to go.

They are used for runways, ramps, military bases, and much more. Now there is one other sign that isn't on this list, and I want to talk about it for just a minute, but it's an informational sign. And these are designed to inform pilots of anything that can't be seen from the control tower.

It could read something like what you see here, to monitor a radio frequency, or to tell pilots about noise abatement procedures being in effect at the airport. Okay. Let's review some questions for a moment.

An aircraft announces they are short on final for runway 9. Where will the aircraft be in relation to the north? And when approaching holding lines from the side with continuous lines, the pilot should what? I'm going to take a minute to let you review these and see if you can figure them out. So the best way to remember the directional questions is going to be able to understand your headings for north South, East, and West. So let's take a look at a compass here for just a minute.

North is always 0 or 360 because a compass only goes 360 degrees. South is going to be 180, East will be 090, and West is going to be 270. Now runway 9 indicates that we are on a heading of 090, so that would mean we are landing to the east. Therefore if the aircraft is landing east, then the aircraft is coming from the west.

If you're still struggling a little bit, I've got one more example for you, but let's answer the second question. Remember those hold short lines? If the two solid lines are in front of you, that means you are not allowed to cross those lines until you have been cleared by the tower.

Here's the next one. You are conducting small UAS operations northeast of a nearby airport while monitoring CTAF, an aircraft announces it's departing runway 36, utilizing a right traffic pattern. Will the aircraft conflict with your operation? So let's talk about it for a minute.

So if we are in an aircraft taking off runway 36, does that mean our heading is going to be north, south, east, or west? If you said north, you're correct because heading 360 is always north. So if we take off going north and into a right traffic pattern, that means we are going to be turning in toward the east. So the answer will be yes.

the aircraft may overfly our operation. Now I want to mention one other thing about operating inside of airports because I really do think this is important. If you noticed on this last question that we just went over, it mentioned the drone operator was monitoring CTAF. So when you are conducting operations inside or in close proximity to an airport, you're going to want to monitor the radio communications so you can be aware of what aircraft are taking off, landing, as well as what aircraft are taxiing. it really does help make airport operations a lot safer overall for both you and the manned aircraft.

And one way that you can monitor radio communications is by using one of these portable radios like you see here. You can purchase one of these online. I'll leave a link in the description for the one I would recommend.

The main thing however is I want you to be aware that when you are using one of these on an airport, you should only use this radio for listening in. Do not attempt to communicate with any of the aircraft or tower unless ATC is talking to you first. From personal experience, when I've conducted drone operations on an active airport, there will most likely be somebody assigned to you that's an official for the airport, and they're going to escort you where you need to go. But also, they're going to have access to these radio communications if you don't have a radio. So if anything happens, the airport official can help you communicate with ATC if you need to.

So just kind of keep this in mind when you are operating in. or near an airport, definitely try and do your best to stay alert for any aircraft taking off, landing or taxiing. Let's talk about weather.

So obviously this is always going to be a factor whenever we fly our drone because when you have to start dealing with heavy winds, rain, dense fog, this is always something that's going to stop us from being airborne. Now the FAA does want you to know some things about weather that affect drone operations as well as how to read weather reports. So we're going to start out with the basics and then we're going to get our way into those reports. Now for starters, the main source of all weather comes from the sun. The changes in weather patterns mostly results from that unequal heating of the earth's surface, and this happens all around.

So when the rays of the sun hit the earth, it spreads out just enough that there's less radiation of heat over a given surface area. Not only that, the sun also plays a role in where wind comes from because that unequal heating of the earth's surface creates large air circulation patterns. Warm air always likes to rise while cooler air settles. which ends up replacing that rising warm air. All these changes lead to variations in pressure depending on the surface that's being heated by the sun.

That surface might retain heat more than other places resulting in either updrafts or downdrafts. Surfaces that might cause updrafts would be surfaces such as pavement or sand. Downdrafts would be something caused from surfaces such as trees and other vegetation.

Wind, as I mentioned just a moment ago because the surface of the earth is not heated heavily all over, it creates large air circulation patterns that can vary. When wind hits various structures on the ground, such as trees or buildings, it's going to affect the flow of that wind, which can cause updrafts and downdrafts at any given altitude. That plus high winds can make flying your drone very difficult if it has built-in stabilization, so just take caution when flying in windy days that are more windy than normal. Air masses. They are a large mass of air that has the same conditions all over.

Examples being if you go to the beaches in California or Florida, air masses there are commonly warm and the air is moist. You go out to Egypt, they have air masses there that are hot but very dry. Or even the North or South Poles where the air is very cold.

All of those different types of air masses, okay? Now, how do these masses form? When an air mass stays over a certain area long enough, It forms based on the characteristics of that particular area.

Now there are several different types of air masses from maritime, tropical, continental arctic, but for the sake of our exam the FAA just wants you to understand what an air mass is in general. Let's talk about fronts. Whenever you watch the weather you've probably seen the blue or red patterns pop up when the weather anchor talks about warm or cold fronts which is exactly what these represent on the screen. Whenever an air mass advances on another air mass that is different, it's going to create a division line called a front. There are two terms of pressure.

High pressure is referred to as a ridge, while low pressure is referred to as a trough. All fronts lie in troughs. If we look at the different patterns on the screen, it's easy for us to pick up which is which. Blue represents cold fronts, which means there's a leading edge of cold air advancing on a particular area, while red represents warm fronts. which is a leading edge of warm air.

Cold fronts often occur after poor weather happens, and they pass through pretty quick. After a front passes, you'll notice windier conditions that can cause turbulence for a period of time, but more extreme cold fronts surprisingly can contribute to the formation of thunderstorms, hail, and even tornadoes. Warm fronts, on the other hand, move half as fast as a cold front and can have a much larger impact to the weather.

They are preceded by lower ceilings, increased precipitation, and reduced visibilities. So what kind of conditions do we want for flying our drone? You would think warm moist air, but actually it's cool dry air because dry air is very stable and resists any vertical movement, creating at times clear weather conditions outside.

Atmospheric stability. It's the resistance of the atmosphere to vertical motions. A stable atmosphere is going to resist any upward or downward movement. Unstable atmosphere allows for upward or downward movement which can grow into convective current. Here are a few conditions you might see between stable and unstable air.

Stable air is going to be smooth, fair to poor visibility, and continuous precipitation. Unstable air is basically going to have the opposite effect. compared to stable layer.

Clouds and visibility. The FAA isn't asking you to know anything scientific here. They really want you to just use common sense. It's obvious that for us flying our drones safely we got to be able to have weather conditions where we can see at least three statute miles away.

So if you're able to spot something far away that you know is basically three miles out you know your visibility is good for flying your drone. Same with clouds. Remember what we discussed as far as how close you can fly to clouds? It's 500 feet below and 2000 feet horizontally. So if there are clouds and you have to conduct an inspection with your drone on a tower that stands 1300 feet for example, clearly you know that if the clouds are touching the top of that structure you're only going to be allowed to fly as high as 800 feet because we have to stay 500 feet below the clouds.

Fog. So this is basically a cloud that rests on the surface is made up of water droplets and ice crystals. Now there are at least five types of fog based on its formation, and the first is radiation fog, which is your ground fog that forms when terrestrial radiation cools the ground and the air. Once the air is cooled down to what is called its dew point, is when you're going to start seeing the formation of this type of fog.

Next we have advection fog, also known as sea fog, and this fog forms when warm moist air moves over colder surfaces. The ocean is a prime example, which is why it gets the name sea fog. Next is upslope fog.

This is formed mostly from stable air that's cooled from its dew point as it moves up a sloping terrain such as a mountain. Precipitation induced fog. This is formed mostly from frontal activity and warm drizzle or rain falling through cooler air. The precipitation that evaporates is going to saturate the cool air, which then creates the fog.

And lastly, there is steam fog. This is a type of fog that can form in the winter when cold. Dry air passes from land areas over warm ocean waters.

You'll even experience a low amount of turbulence as well as icing in steam fog. Now, the Part 107 exam does have questions pertaining to fog, so just take a moment to review those in your spare time. Density altitude. By definition, it is pressure altitude corrected for non-standard temperature.

Now, that probably makes absolutely no sense to you at all, so let's just bring out the Clip Notes version of this. Density altitude is the altitude that an aircraft feels like it's flying at. An example would be if the weather report tells us the density altitude is 3,000 feet at the surface. That means aircraft taking off from a runway are going to feel and perform as if they're operating from an altitude of 3,000 feet. So the higher the density altitude, the poorer the aircraft will perform.

Three things that affect density altitude will be high temperatures, so the warmer it is outside, the less dense the air is going to be. High humidity, meaning the more water vapor that's in the air, that will equal less air mass. And high elevation, so the higher the altitude, the less dense the air will be. Thunderstorms. They are extremely hazardous to pilots and should be avoided by at least 20 nautical miles because thunderstorms are massive in size.

How do they form and what do we need to know? There are three stages to a thunderstorm. Cumulus, mature, and dissipating. The cumulus stage is when sufficient moist and instability in the air are present. Now the cumulus stage creates updrafts which causes the clouds to increase in vertical height that can go from three to five miles above the ground.

It also prevents any rain from falling from the earth because that's just how strong these updrafts are. The cumulus stage also creates areas of low pressure and will eventually develop into the next stage, which is called the mature stage. The mature stage can be developed fairly quickly, within about 15 minutes or so.

And this stage is going to be the most violent of the life cycle. And you'll know when the life cycle of a thunderstorm reaches maturity when the rain starts to fall. Because all that moisture and unstable air have been accumulating and creating these massive clouds.

There's simply too much moisture in the air and it has to fall. So when it starts to rain, creates downdrafts, but at the same time there are also updrafts occurring as well. So mature stage is going to have both updrafts and downdrafts. This will be the strongest and most violent part of a thunderstorm. The clouds are still growing vertically and reach heights of five to ten miles above the ground at this point.

So if the mature stage is where a thunderstorm is the strongest, and that means the last stage is going to be where we see the thunderstorm start to get really weak. And we call this the dissipating stage. Throughout the life cycle of the thunderstorm, the clouds are still rising vertically, but eventually as we enter the dissipating stage, the tops of those clouds can't go any higher, and they start to spread out.

In aviation, we describe it as looking like an anvil. Here is a comparison image for you to look at. And because of the tops of the clouds, we'll level off at about five to seven miles above the ground. The dissipating stage is going to be dominated by downdrafts.

So throughout the first two stages of the thunderstorm, updrafts have been present. But when a thunderstorm starts to die, you'll see those updrafts go away. Thunderstorms have other things going on as well that can help you determine just how strong they are.

Thunderstorms have thunder and lightning, which is a good indicator because they occur in thunderstorms. So if you ever want to know how far away a lightning strike occurs that you see. Simple rule of thumb is every second that passes when you don't hear a clap of thunder, that's going to equal a mile. So you see a strike of lightning and then you don't hear anything for about five seconds, that means the lightning strike happened five miles away from you. Also keep in mind that any indicator of thunder or lightning is your sign to stop any drone operation that you're trying to conduct and seek shelter.

Thunderstorms are extremely dangerous and you should not be operating your drone in those weather conditions at all. Thunderstorms also produce hail. If you've always wondered why hail can be larger than a golf ball, it's because moisture that is trying to fall to the ground is constantly being shoved around by the updrafts and downdrafts. And while at the same time, it's freezing it, it's melting it, and then refreezing it again from various temperature changes inside the cloud.

This isn't something that occurs all the time, but certain conditions will at times create hail storms as well as can cause a ton of damage, especially to your car. Microbursts. These are also something that can occur during a storm and they're most deadly to pilots and drones because it's something you can't really spot. Microbursts are small intense downdrafts that once they get near the ground and start to spread outward they spread in all directions and they have been the result of several deadly air disasters in aviation. Delta Flight 191 was one of those incidents when a microburst occurred just short of the runway they were planning to land on, which ultimately caused the aircraft to crash because the extreme turbulence and downdrafts from a microburst are too much that pilots really have no way to control the airplane.

Granted, technology has advanced to detect microbursts since then, but Back before 1985, microbursts were still fairly unheard of and there was no way to really detect them at all. Now, where can we find our weather information for where we want to fly our drone? 1800weatherbrief.com is where you're going to be able to find all the info you need, including METARs, which is what we're going to get into now to try and wrap up the weather portion of this video. So METARs are going to provide you the latest up-to-date weather information that's been reported in a standard international format.

And at first glance, it's confusing, but I promise this will make more sense once we break it down and you understand each part of it. The first part is what kind of report we're reading. METAR stands for Meteorological Aerodrome Report. There is another weather report similar to this known as the Terminal Aerodrome Forecast, or TAF for short. I'll go over a sample of a TAF as well, but Once we go over this METAR right here, you might be able to read that tap as well.

So the first piece of information is what type of weather report we are looking at. The second piece of information is the station designator. The airport we're getting our information from for this example comes from Tampa International. The other part here is the date and time, which in aviation, it's always read as Zulu time, also known as universal time. So for this report.

the date is going to be the first two digits. In this case it's the 11th day of the month. The exact month is never listed on Ametar because these get updated continuously, so it doesn't really matter.

And the last four digits after that are with the Z at the end. It tells us the report was issued at 1320 Zulu or 1 20 pm UTC. Next we have auto.

This tells us the weather report was generated automatically. But if something gets changed for any reason, that could then turn into a COR, which stands for corrected. Next is our information about the winds. So, winds are at 080 at 20 knots, gusting to 38. The 080 is our compass heading, the direction the wind is coming from.

And the 20 indicates our winds, but also it can gust to 38 knots. Next we have our visibility information. Half statute miles is our visibility that we can see out in front of us and R36L that's our runway, so runway 36L.

The 2400 feet is our visual range that we'll see the runway from as we come into land on runway 36L. These symbols and letters indicate current weather. The plus sign means it's heavy.

If it were to be light you'll see a minus sign instead. TS means thunderstorms while RA means rain. I'm going to put up a list of all of these symbols for you to glance over after I go over this so you can better study for this part because the FAA does like to mix these up a bit on the actual exam. So I want to make sure you just have a chance to review more of these just in case.

This next set is our sky conditions. So the first part tells us the clouds are scattered. That's the SCT, scattered at 008. This is our altitude and these clouds are at hundreds of feet. So this means our clouds are scattered at 800. The other bit of information is additional cloud coverage information. So not only do we have clouds scattered at 800 feet, we also have an overcast of 012 or 1200 feet happening as well.

Neat thing about clouds is they don't all rest on the same altitude at the same time. Sometimes you might have clouds at low altitudes, but you might see other layers of clouds behind them that are way higher altitudes in the air. And doing something completely different as well.

The CB on the end is simply telling us the type of cloud that it is. In this case this stands for cumulonimbus, which is going to be a very large and very tall cloud. It's actually the cloud that produces thunderstorms. If you remember how the life cycle of a thunderstorm, the clouds always get larger and taller due to updrafts. 2018 is your temperature and dew point.

On weather reports, temperature is measured in Celsius, so we have 20 degrees Celsius with a dew point of 1.8. Dew point is the measure of moisture that's in the air. It's also the temperature the air needs to get in order for water droplets to form into that dew we see in the grass each morning when we get up early.

Note that the higher your dew point, the muggier it's This next piece of info is what pilots will set their altimeters to when they are flying in or out of airports. It's mainly designed to ensure that when they are flying from one destination to the next that the altimeter is set correctly and not giving them an inaccurate read on what altitude they're flying at. There is a way that this is measured, but for us we only really need to know what this information is telling us.

RMK stands for remarks and the A02 means our station type. This could also say A01. TSB means thunderstorms began.

The 24 indicates how many minutes past the hour, so 24 minutes past the hour. RAB means rain began. RA is rain. The B means began.

This also occurred 24 minutes past the hour. The final piece of info is the SLP 134, the sea level pressure. Here are all the various letters and symbols you might see.

It's not going to be necessary to memorize all of these by heart, but at least get familiar with some of the common ones such as rain and snow. Terminal Aerodrome Forecast, or TAF for short. These weather reports are released by large airports to summarize and predict weather in the area.

These reports go as far as 5 statue miles away from the airport, and these can also span for multiple days. Now, looking at a TAF, you'll probably prefer to just stick with the METAR, but they're both essentially read the same way. So let's take a peek at one. This is a TAF that was released by Atlanta Hartsfields Airport. The first two parts indicate that this weather report is a TAF and the airport that released this was Atlanta.

We also read this part the same way as we did on Amitar. This report was released on the 16th day of the month at 2330 Zulu time. This part right here is where it becomes a bit different from Amitar. The first two digits you see here highlighted in red identify the day of the month. So this report will last from the 17th day of the month to the 18th day of the month.

The other digits are what time the report starts and ends. In this case, this report will start on the 17th day of the month at midnight to the 18th day of the month at 0600 Zulu time. The last of this information on the top row is the conditions at the airport.

You have Winds at 170 at 9 knots. P6SM tells us we have plus 6 statute miles of visibility. With clouds broken at 25,000 feet, remember those numbers are measured in hundreds of feet, so 250 times 100 gives you 25,000. This whole block of information below is our forecast section of the TAF. Each line is going to give you weather forecasts for specific times.

The FM on each line means from. Other TAF reports might say something different such as tempo for temporary. On this TAF report by Atlanta every weather forecast listed is going to be from a certain time on the day.

Highlighted here in red is all the times the forecast is expected to change throughout the day. Starting at the top, this line of information will occur from the 17th day of the month at 0300 Zulu. Second line from the 17th day of the month at 1900 Zulu. Third line from the 17th day of the month at 2200 Zulu.

And if we jump to the bottom line here, you can see now this tap report spans to the 18th day of the month. at 0200 Zulu or 2 in the morning. Next piece of info from each line is our wind information. Again, just as we read it on the METAR, the wind info from this top line indicates winds from a heading of 190 at 6 knots. The line below it, it's winds from a heading of 230 gusting at 10 knots or even 20 knots.

Again, here is our visibility information, which is not changing at all on this TAF. It states the visibility is going to be plus six statute miles. You'll notice that some of these lines of info also provide what kind of weather to expect at Atlanta Hartsfield.

The third line from the bottom where it says VCSH means we will have showers in the vicinity. VC meaning vicinity, SH meaning showers. Scattered at 050 or scattered at 5,000 feet.

The line below that is telling us at 2300 Zulu we're gonna have light rain showers scattered at 4,000 feet. Remember the minus sign means light while the plus sign is going to indicate heavy. SH meaning showers and RA meaning rain.

Now having been told all this information can you decode the bottom line here on this TAF? If you want to try it feel free to go ahead and pause the video for a second. But if you've already figured it out, or you just want me to tell you the answer, from the 18th day of the month at 0200 Zulu, we have winds of 260 at 5 knots, visibility is plus 6 statute miles with showers in the vicinity, and overcast at 7000 feet. Last but not least, we have our cloud information.

BKN tells us that the clouds are broken at certain altitudes. The top line tells us 25,000 feet, but notice as the day goes on, The clouds are going to get lower in altitude. We then go from 25,000 to 15,000 all the way down to 7,000 feet at 2300 Zulu.

Hopefully as we went along and broke each report down bit by bit, you've started to figure out how all of these reports are read. These are the same reports pilots use all the time when you board a commercial flight and even when you train to get your private pilot's license. So they teach you how to read these either way. So I know that was a ton of info, but let's review a little bit with some practice questions you might see on your test.

Refer to figure 14. The wind direction and velocity at JFK is from what? And refer to figure 15. Between these dates and times, the visibility at KMEM is forecast to be what? Let's look at the first question. On your exam, you might see multiple METARs stacked on top of each other from different airports.

in the same image. So you'll have to be able to find the METAR information you need by identifying what info the question's already given you. In our case, we know that we're looking for a METAR for JFK airport, which is going to be this second line right here on the top. And we are asked about wind information.

So if we scan through the METAR info, you'll see right where it says 1,804 kt. That's our wind information. And what is it telling us? Take a minute to pause the video if you need a moment, but if not, the info is telling us that the winds are from 180 at 4 knots.

Notice our multiple choice answers give us two options with the same digits, but one says true and the other says magnetic. Just know, whenever you're talking about wind information, it's going to be true and never magnetic, because magnetic refers to navigational info, not weather. Second question.

Between these dates and times, the visibility at KMEM is forecast to be what? Let's look at the TAF provided. Do you remember where we will find our information regarding dates and times? Whenever a TAP is giving us weather information for a specific date and time, it will be one of the first items listed. Now, if you're still struggling to read weather reports at the moment, let's just break it down a little bit more.

For starters, the information we're looking for is going to be on this line highlighted here. In the question, it's asked for specific times. The numbers given to us are read as 10 am Zulu time and 12 in the afternoon Zulu time.

While it didn't specify the day of the month, we can still find our info if we remember how to read this portion. The first two digits are always going to be your day of the month, while the last two digits are your times. Because it's the only line with the same times listed in our question, we know this is where we're going to find our visibility information we were asked about. In our case, between 10 a.m. and 12 in the afternoon, our visibility is going to be three statute miles.

Again, I am not expecting you to fully make sense of weather reports right off the bat. Some of you might be catching on fairly quickly, but if you need more practice with these, I have my recommended practice exams listed in the description below, which is going to give you more sample questions regarding METARs and TAFs, as well as sectional charts if you still want more practice with those as well. And that brings us to the end of this part 107 video. I hope that this has provided you a little bit more insight on what you need to know.

so that you can better study for your exam. If you're looking for additional study material and practice exams to use, I will have my recommendations listed in the description below that'll help better prepare you even more if you need it. Once you're ready to take the exam, you'll need to register for your exam online with the FAA because you'll only be allowed to take the test at an approved FAA testing facility. If you want to know where the nearest facility is, I will have a link in the description below. that'll allow you to check and see where the nearest facility is to where you live.

If you enjoyed this course and you got something out of this video, please leave a like and don't forget to subscribe as well if you'd like to keep watching more content from my channel. I cover both photography and video. With all that said, thank you guys so much for watching and I look forward to seeing you in the next video.