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The Part 107 Study Guide

By Jandy — FAA-certified drone pilot · Published Jul 23, 2026 · Last reviewed Jul 23, 2026 · 10 min read

There's a whole industry built around the Part 107 knowledge test — apps, video courses, cram sheets. Meanwhile, the official materials the FAA itself publishes for the exam sit on faa.gov as free PDFs. Those free materials were the core of my own prep for the UAG, and this lesson walks through exactly how to put them to work.

EDUCATIONAL GUIDE

Practical education from a working drone pilot — not legal advice. FAA procedures and fees change; always confirm current requirements on the official FAA pages linked throughout. Last reviewed Jul 23, 2026.

In this guide:

What the Test Actually Covers

On your booking confirmation the exam shows up as "Unmanned Aircraft General – Small" — UAG for short — and it's administered in person by PSI, currently the FAA's testing vendor. It runs 60 multiple-choice questions in a two-hour window, and 70% is the passing score. There is no flight test for Part 107; you demonstrate you're safe to operate by passing this one written exam.

The blueprint for the exam is a document called the Airman Certification Standards (ACS). It lists every knowledge element the FAA is allowed to test you on, organized into five Areas of Operation. Better yet, the FAA publishes the official percentage each area gets on your test:

Notice what that weighting is telling you. Operations — the grab-bag area covering radio communications, airport operations, emergency procedures, decision-making, physiology, and maintenance — is the single biggest slice of the exam. People fixate on regulations and airspace, and those matter, but a third or more of your questions come from the operational stuff. The FAA also now explicitly lists night operation as a test topic, which matters for how you study (more on that below).

If you're still earlier in the process — deciding whether to get certified at all, or unsure what happens after the test — start with my full walkthrough on how to become an FAA Part 107 drone pilot. This lesson assumes you've committed and zooms in on one thing: preparing for the exam.

  • Regulations (15–25%) — what Part 107 lets you do, what it doesn't, and where the lines are
  • Airspace Classification & Operating Requirements (15–25%) — the classes of airspace, what each requires, and flight restrictions
  • Weather (11–16%) — official weather sources and how weather affects a small drone
  • Loading & Performance (7–11%) — weight, balance, and how loading changes the way the aircraft flies
  • Operations (35–45%) — the big one: radio procedures, airport operations, emergencies, aeronautical decision-making, physiology, and maintenance

The Free FAA Study Stack

The FAA maintains an official FAQ answering "where can I find study materials for the Part 107 test," and it names three documents. I'd add two more references and one free course. Together, this is everything the FAA offers — and every item below comes straight from the agency that writes the exam:

That last point about the testing supplement is worth repeating: CT-8080-2H is the physical booklet the proctor hands you at the test. Every figure question on the UAG points to a numbered figure in that exact document. When you practice reading charts from it at your kitchen table, you are practicing on the literal figures you'll see on exam day. There's no substitute for that.

  • Remote Pilot Study Guide (FAA-G-8082-22) — the closest thing to an official textbook. It covers the knowledge areas in readable prose: regulations, airspace, weather, loading, emergencies, decision-making, airport operations, maintenance. One catch: it was published in 2016 and predates the 2021 night-operations rule, so cover night topics from the ACS and the FAA's certification page rather than assuming this guide has it all. Direct PDF.
  • Airman Certification Standards (FAA-S-ACS-10B) — the exam blueprint itself. Every testable knowledge element has a code, and those same ACS codes show up on your test report for any question you miss. Use it as a checklist: if you can explain every element in plain English, you've covered everything the FAA is allowed to ask. Direct PDF.
  • Official UAG sample questions — a set of multiple-choice questions written by the FAA in the exact format of the real 60-question exam, each keyed to an ACS code. Direct PDF.
  • Airman Knowledge Testing Supplement (FAA-CT-8080-2H) — the booklet of charts, legends, and figures used at the actual test. It's a very large download because it's full of chart imagery — and that imagery is the point. Download page.
  • Aeronautical Chart Users' Guide — the FAA's official decoder for every symbol on a sectional chart. It's revised on a regular cycle, so grab the current edition from the landing page rather than an old bookmarked PDF.
  • ALC-451 on FAASafety.gov — a free FAA online course, about two hours, covering regulations, weather, loading, emergencies, night operations, and more. It's designed for current manned-aircraft (Part 61) pilots with a flight review in the last 24 months — for them it replaces the UAG test — but the FAA lets anyone enroll. For a first-timer it doesn't replace your exam; it's a solid structured review that costs nothing. Course page.
NOTE

The FAA has no secret question bank — the documents above are the official set, and all of them are free. One caveat: document editions and test details are current as of this writing (July 2026). The FAA revises them periodically, so confirm the latest versions on its ACS and testing-supplement pages before test day.

Sectional Charts: The Part That Filters People

A sectional chart is the standard aviation map — a dense, colorful sheet showing airports, airspace boundaries, terrain, and frequencies. If any part of the UAG makes people sweat, it's this. The regulations you can read and remember; chart questions ask you to decode a map you've maybe never seen before, under time pressure.

And they are absolutely on the test. The FAA's own sample questions include items like finding the floor of a Class C airspace shelf on a specific chart figure, or pulling a radio frequency for an airport off the chart. The ACS lists aeronautical charts and Chart Supplements (the FAA's airport-by-airport directory) as required knowledge. You can't route around this section — so practice it directly.

Here's the drill I recommend. Open the testing supplement to any sectional figure and quiz yourself on three things, over and over: What class of airspace sits over this point? Where does that airspace start and stop vertically — the floors and ceilings printed on the chart? What does this symbol mean — and when you don't know, look it up in the Chart Users' Guide instead of guessing. That loop, repeated across different figures, is the whole skill.

Chart reading is a skill, not a talent. The first hour is genuinely confusing. Somewhere around the tenth or fifteenth rep, the chart stops looking like abstract art and starts looking like information. And unlike some test material, this one never stops paying — I still check charts before client flights across North Florida, because knowing exactly whose airspace I'm under is the job.

A Realistic Study Plan

Everyone's timeline is different — aviation background, free hours, how you retain material. So instead of promising a schedule, here's a sequence. Move to the next step when the current one feels solid, not when the calendar says so:

That sequence puts sample questions near the end on purpose. If you take them cold on day one, you burn your only official practice set learning what you don't know yet. Save them for a dress rehearsal — closed-book, timed. The ACS codes attached to every question turn each miss into a precise restudy assignment.

  1. Read the Remote Pilot Study Guide front to back. Don't memorize yet — just build the map of what exists. Flag anything that reads like a foreign language.
  2. Work through the ACS area by area, checking that you can explain each knowledge element in your own words. Fill night-operations gaps here, since the study guide predates that rule.
  3. Drill sectional charts: testing supplement open on one side, Chart Users' Guide on the other. Airspace class, floors and ceilings, symbols, frequencies — repeat across figures until it's boring.
  4. Optionally run the free ALC-451 course on FAASafety.gov as a structured review pass. Two hours, ends with a quiz.
  5. Take the official UAG sample questions under exam conditions — closed-book, timed. Use the ACS codes on anything you miss to target your restudy.
  6. When practice runs feel consistently comfortable, get your FAA Tracking Number (FTN) through IACRA — the FAA's online application system where you create your airman profile — then book the exam through the PSI testing portal. You need the FTN before you can register.

No paid Part 107 course can sell you secret content. The testable material all comes from the same FAA documents listed above — the ACS defines every knowledge element the exam can ask — so no vendor has inside information. What courses do sell is structure: video lessons, big question banks, progress tracking, someone to email. If you know you won't grind through government PDFs on your own, that structure has real value and there's no shame in buying it — but it's optional, and I won't point you to a specific vendor. Decide based on how you actually learn, not on fear. Either way, the drone pilot guide hub has the rest of the certification path mapped out when you're ready.

Test-Day Tactics

You've already got your FTN from the study-plan step, so exam week is just about the exam itself — bring photo ID and show up rested.

Now some math that should lower your blood pressure. Sixty questions in two hours works out to two full minutes per question — a lot of runway. Read every question twice before answering. Every question stands alone, so a hard one can't hurt the next one: when you hit a wall, mark your best guess so nothing sits blank, note the question, and circle back at the end with fresh eyes and time to spare.

The pass line is 70% — enough margin that a bad chart figure and a couple of coin-flip answers still leave you passing. You're not chasing perfection, and treating it that way keeps one nasty question from wrecking your composure. Passing the knowledge test doesn't make you certified on the spot, by the way — the certificate comes a few application steps later, which the full pilot guide walks through.

A failed attempt costs you fourteen calendar days and a second test fee — and it hands you a study plan. Your test report lists the ACS code for every question you missed, which is a ready-made restudy list, and no instructor sign-off is required to retake the UAG. Bring the report with you when you rebook. I'd rather you walk in knowing all that than walk in scared.

IMPORTANT

Leave your notes in the car. Handwritten, printed, or electronic written materials are not permitted at the testing station — the FAA lists them as unacceptable. The proctor supplies the CT-8080-2H figures booklet and approved tools like a basic calculator, plotter, or scale.

How to Become an FAA Part 107 Drone Pilot

The parent walkthrough: the complete certification journey from eligibility to staying current, every official source linked.

The Drone Pilot Guide

The full learning path — roadmap, lessons and FAQs for getting certified and flying commercially.

Frequently asked questions

It depends on where you're starting. If you already read charts or have aviation exposure, you'll move fast; if words like 'Class E airspace' are brand new, budget several weeks of steady evenings. My honest advice is to ignore the calendar and follow the sequence: study guide, ACS checklist, chart drills, then sample questions. When the practice material feels steady instead of shaky, that's your signal to book — not a number of days somebody on the internet promised.

Yes — they're written by the FAA in the same multiple-choice format, keyed to the same ACS codes, and they reference the same testing supplement figures. The catch is quantity: the sample set is much smaller than the real 60-question exam, so treat it as a final run-through rather than a full practice bank. The FAA's ACS page also points to the PSI testing portal for additional practice exams once you create an account with your FTN.

No — the testing supplement booklet you get at the exam includes chart legends, so you're never decoding entirely from memory. But you don't want to be flipping to a legend for basics while the clock runs. Learn the common airspace depictions and the symbols that show up in the official sample questions cold, and use the Aeronautical Chart Users' Guide to look up anything unfamiliar during practice so it isn't unfamiliar on test day.

There's no official threshold — the FAA only cares that you hit 70% on the real thing. My personal approach: I wanted to be scoring comfortably above the passing line on practice runs, consistently and under timed conditions, so an off day or a couple of ugly chart questions still left margin. If your practice scores hover right at 70%, that's a coin flip, not readiness — spend another week on your weak ACS areas first. No score guarantees anything, but a buffer buys calm.

Official sources

Every regulatory statement in this guide traces to the FAA. Start here:

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