Part 107 Study Guide

Most Part 107 study advice tells you to watch everything. This tells you what's actually on the test, roughly in order of how much it matters.

The five knowledge areas

The FAA builds the exam around these areas. Operations and Regulations carry the most questions, with Airspace and Weather close behind:

• Regulations — Part 107 itself: altitude and speed limits, visibility, operations over people, night ops, waivers, registration, reporting requirements
• Operations — preflight inspection, crew roles, risk assessment, aeronautical decision-making, radio and airport procedures, emergencies
• Airspace — Classes B/C/D/E/G, special use airspace, NOTAMs, authorizations
• Weather — METAR and TAF decoding, density altitude, stability, wind, visibility
• Loading & Performance — weight, balance, center of gravity, how loading affects flight

Start with the free official sources

The FAA publishes everything free, and the test questions come directly from these documents:

• Remote Pilot – Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Study Guide (FAA-G-8082-22) — the closest thing to an official textbook for this exam
• Advisory Circular 107-2 — the FAA's plain-language explanation of how to comply with Part 107
• 14 CFR Part 107 — the regulation itself
• Aeronautical Information Manual (AIM) — airspace and procedures in depth
• Airman Certification Standards (FAA-S-ACS-10) — the literal outline of everything you can be tested on

All available at faa.gov. If you want to spend $0, that's your curriculum. The catch is volume — that's several hundred pages, and a large share of it isn't tested.

The highest-yield topics

Sectional charts (study this first)

The most common failure area. Learn the legend: airport symbols, airspace boundary depictions, obstruction heights, and the special-use airspace markings. Practice on real chart excerpts, not simplified diagrams — the test uses real ones.

Airspace classes

For each class, know: how it looks on a sectional, its altitude structure, and whether you need authorization. The short version — B, C, D, and surface E require prior ATC authorization; G doesn't.

The numbers worth memorizing

• 400 ft AGL max altitude (or within 400 ft of a structure)
• 87 knots (100 mph) max groundspeed
• 3 statute miles minimum visibility
• 500 ft below / 2,000 ft horizontally from clouds
• 55 lbs max aircraft weight; 0.55 lb registration threshold
• 30 days to report an address change; 10 days to report a qualifying accident
• 24 calendar months for recurrent training

METAR and TAF decoding

Learn the field order once and it becomes mechanical: station, time, wind, visibility, weather, clouds, temperature/dewpoint, altimeter. The test will hand you a raw METAR and ask what it means.

Hazardous attitudes and ADM

Five attitudes, each with a memorized antidote. Easy points if you drill them as pairs — the test typically gives you the attitude and asks for the antidote.

A study sequence that works

1. Take a practice test cold, before studying anything. You'll score badly — that's the point. It tells you where you actually stand.
2. Study your two weakest categories first. For most people that's airspace and charts.
3. Drill the memorization items — the numbers, the attitudes, the time limits.
4. Retake practice tests until you're consistently in the mid-80s in every category, not just overall.
5. Book the exam. Read the cram sheet the night before and the morning of.

The mistake to avoid: studying comprehensively in the order a textbook presents things. You'll spend hours on topics worth two questions and skim the ones worth twelve.