I have taken more FAA knowledge tests than I care to count, and the Part 107 is the one people psych themselves out over the most. It is a 60 question multiple choice test, you get two hours, and you need a 70% to pass. That is it. There is no checkride, no oral exam, nobody watching you fly. And still, people fail it every day, almost always for the same reasons.
Quick answer: to pass the Part 107 test on the first try, put in 15 to 25 hours of focused study, spend most of that time on airspace and charts because that is what actually fails people, and do not book your $175 exam until you are scoring 85% or higher on full practice tests two or three times in a row.
This is the plan we hand to every student who asks. It is not fancy. It works because it is built around how the test is actually written, not around what feels productive.
Know what the test is before you study for it
The test is officially called the Unmanned Aircraft General, Small, or UAG. You take it in person at a PSI testing center, the same company that runs most FAA written exams. You book it yourself on PSI’s website, pay $175 when you schedule, and show up with a government ID. No drone required. Nobody cares if you have ever flown one.
The FAA publishes the rough topic weights, and they matter more than any study trick:
- Operations: 35 to 45 percent of the test
- Regulations: 15 to 25 percent
- Airspace and sectional charts: 15 to 25 percent
- Weather: 11 to 18 percent
- Loading and performance: 7 to 11 percent
Read that again before you buy anything. Operations and regulations are close to half the test, and they are mostly memorization. Airspace and weather are smaller slices, but they are the slices that require actual understanding, and they are where the failures concentrate. A bad study plan spends equal time on everything. A good one spends time where the risk is.
The three week plan that works
If you have no aviation background, plan on two to three weeks of evenings, or two serious weekends plus a week of review. Here is how we lay it out.
Week one: regulations and operations
Start with the boring stuff, because it is the biggest chunk of the test and the easiest to bank. Part 107 itself is short. Read the actual rule summary on the FAA’s site, then work through the operational questions: who can be a remote pilot in command, what a visual observer does, the 400 foot ceiling, the 100 mile per hour speed limit, daylight and civil twilight, flying over people, flying from a moving vehicle, right of way.
A lot of this is common sense once you see the pattern. The FAA’s pattern is simple: the manned aircraft almost always wins, the person on the ground almost always wins, and you are always responsible. When a regulations question stumps you, pick the answer that sounds like the most conservative, safest option. You will be right more often than not.
Do not skip the paperwork side. Registration rules, Remote ID, accident reporting, what counts as a serious injury. These are free points. People lose them because they only studied the fun parts.
Week two: airspace, charts, and weather
This is the week that decides whether you pass. Airspace questions show you a chunk of a sectional chart and ask things like: what is the floor of the Class E airspace here, what does this number in parentheses mean, can you fly at this spot without authorization. If you have never read a sectional chart, it looks like a bowl of spaghetti. Give it three or four honest hours and it starts to resolve into logic.
Learn the airspace classes cold: B, C, D, E, G, what each one demands from you, and how each one is drawn on the chart. Learn the weird ones too, because the test loves them: military operation areas, restricted areas, warning areas, stadium TFRs, the dashed magenta lines that change the Class E floor to the surface.
For weather, you need to read a METAR and a TAF at a basic level. Not like an airline dispatcher. Just enough to pull wind, visibility, ceiling, and temperature out of one. Learn what density altitude is and why hot days at high elevation hurt performance. Learn the weather minimums from the rule itself: three statute miles visibility, 500 feet below clouds, 2,000 feet laterally.
Week three: hammer practice questions
The last stretch is volume. Take full 60 question practice tests under a timer, review every single miss, and figure out which topic each miss belongs to. One bad topic is a pattern. Go back and restudy that topic, then test again.
Your target is not 70%. Your target is 85% or better, three times running, on tests you have not memorized. The real exam will not use the exact questions you practiced, so a memorized 95% means nothing. A genuine 85% means you have margin for the weirdly worded questions the FAA is famous for.
We built a free 60 question practice test with the real pass mark and explanations for every answer, specifically so students can check readiness before spending the $175. Take it cold before you start studying if you want a baseline, then again at the end of each week.
The topics that actually fail people
After watching a lot of students through this, the same five areas cause almost every failed attempt:
- Airspace floors and ceilings on charts. Not the classes themselves, but reading the numbers off a real sectional excerpt under time pressure.
- Latitude and longitude. The test still asks you to locate a coordinate on a chart. Ten minutes of practice fixes it. Nobody practices it.
- METAR and TAF decoding. Students memorize the format, then freeze when the test asks what the weather will be at a specific hour inside a TAF’s validity window.
- Load factor and performance. Small slice, strange questions. Know what a load factor is and what happens to stall speed in a bank.
- Crew resource management and the IMSAFE checklist. Operations questions about judgment, fatigue, and risk. Easy points if you read the material, annoying losses if you skipped it.
Notice what is not on that list: drone hardware. The test barely cares about your aircraft. It cares whether you can share airspace with airplanes without becoming a problem.
Test day logistics nobody mentions
Before you can even book the exam you need an FAA Tracking Number, called an FTN, which you get by making a free account in IACRA, the FAA’s airman application system. Do this a week ahead, not the night before. The PSI booking flow asks for it, and creating an IACRA account at midnight before a morning exam is a special kind of stress you do not need.
Bring a government issued photo ID. You cannot bring your phone, notes, or a smart watch into the testing room. PSI gives you scratch paper, a pen, and a basic calculator if you want one. There is a screen magnifier and a legend booklet for the chart questions, which you should actually use. Half the chart questions get easier the moment you look up the symbol instead of guessing from memory.
Two hours sounds generous and it is. Use it. Answer everything, flag the ones you are unsure about, then go back. Your first instinct on regulation questions is usually right. Your first instinct on chart questions is worth double checking against the legend.
After you pass
Passing the test does not hand you a certificate on the spot. You go back into IACRA, submit the application with your test ID, and the TSA runs a background check. A temporary certificate shows up in IACRA, usually within a couple of weeks, and the plastic card follows in the mail. You can fly commercially with the temporary.
Then register your drone if it weighs 0.55 pounds or more, which is nearly everything with a real camera, mark the registration number on the airframe, and make sure the aircraft is Remote ID compliant. After that, you are legal. The learning curve that matters for actually making money starts there, and it is a different curve than the test.
If you fail, it is annoying but not fatal. You wait 14 calendar days, pay the $175 again, and retake it. The report you get after a failed attempt breaks down which subject areas you missed, which is genuinely useful. Still, it is cheaper to study an extra week than to buy the test twice.
Common questions
- What is a passing score on the Part 107 test?
- You need 70% or better, which is 42 of the 60 questions. You get 120 minutes, which works out to two minutes per question. Most well prepared students finish with 30 or 40 minutes to spare.
- How much does it cost to retake the Part 107 test?
- The full fee again, $175 paid to PSI each time you sit for it, and you have to wait 14 calendar days before retesting. Failing once turns a cheap test into a $350 lesson.
- How long should I study for the Part 107 test?
- Most people with no aviation background need 15 to 25 hours of real study, spread over two to three weeks. Pilots and people with airspace exposure can compress that to a focused weekend.
- Can I take the Part 107 test online from home?
- No. The initial Unmanned Aircraft General test is taken in person at a PSI testing center. The recurrent training you do every 24 months after that is online and free through the FAA’s safety website.