Pass your Part 107 Drone Certification Test

I’ve been procrastinating about getting my certification for over a year now. I would start studying and then other things came up and it really just didn’t seem that important to me. My flying abilities have improved over the last couple of years and I have had more and more requests that could have potentially resulted in paying gigs. I finally decided to be earnest about my quest for my part 107 certification and so I dedicated 2 weeks to the process and I’m going to walk you through my strategy which ultimate resulted in me passing my test with 90% on January 29th, 2020.

I wasted about 2 days trying to decide which drone school to attend. The two I found myself most interested in were Drone Pilot Ground School and Remote Pilot 101. Ultimately as I researched I found all sorts of free resources out there on YouTube and such and I realised that all I would really be buying in purchasing a school was an attempt at more discipline to study. I decided to quit researching where to study and start studying!!

I did spend some money on resources which I consider to have been invaluable. I bought the remote pilot test prep book off of Amazon and the ASA Airman Knowledge Testing Supplement. The testing supplement is identical to the link I have included below as a PDF – (Faa Testing Supplement). I used both the print version and the pdf version in my studies. The nice thing about the pdf version is that you can zoom in electronically whereas in the print version you’ll need a magnifying glass for some of the smaller stuff! You’ll get the paper version in the test so best to practice with paper!!

FAA Links
FAA Chart Users Guide
FAA Testing Supplement – the same book you receive when you take the test
FAA Remote Pilot Study Guide
Testing Info – FAA info

Here’s some links to good study guides
Tony Northrup
https://northrup.photo/free-faa-part-107-suas-drone-certification-study-guide/
3DR
https://newthreedee.wpengine.com/docs/faa-part-107-study-guide/
Rupprecht Law
https://jrupprechtlaw.com/part-107-knowledge-test
This site also has a very helpful study guide which you can receive by signing up for their emails which haven’t seemed spamy

Learn your airspace, understand the weather stable versus unstable air, be able to read the sectional charts and especially be able to read the METARS and the TAFs. Know the multicom frequency and how to find tower frequencies, drone rules are a large part of the test.

My biggest challenge in studying was getting my head around all the weather info out there. The Remote Pilot Test book has codes where you can take like 5 practice tests. My advice is study! Then study some more!.. Start taking some practice tests like the 3DR test and the test on the Rupprecht Law website. After you think you have a pretty good handle on the info then start taking the practice tests that you get with the book. The tests in the book are very very similar to the actual test.

The question that stumped me the most on the test was similar to this question I am pretty sure I guess the right answer but the key to this question was knowing the elevation of the airport.

Ok -here is my YouTube playlist of videos that helped me the most in my test prep.

I also bought a couple of apps.
Prepware Remote Pilot available on apple and android
Sporty’s Remote Pilot Drone Test Prep android and ipad

I scheduled a date for my test so I would have a deadline. I chose a testing site that would be a good 45 min drive so I could listen to Tony Northrup’s video again on the way there. I took another practice test first thing in the morning. I scheduled my test for 1:30 in the afternoon and planned on being there an hour early so I could read over my notes again.

The test seemed easy to me!! Not because it was easy but because I was prepared. Do not learn answers! Learn solutions! If you understand the airspace then the questions won’t stump you. Memorize the numbers on Tony Northrups’s cheat sheet. I finished my test in about 40 minutes and was surprised I had finished so then I took my time going over all the questions and I knew without a doubt I had passed before I got my results.

I promise you the process is more daunting than the test but preparation goes a really long way!!