The Federal Aviation Administration’s Part 107 rulemaking in 2016 was the first comprehensive federal regime for the commercial operation of small unmanned aircraft systems in the United States. Before Part 107, commercial drone flights required a case-by-case exemption under Section 333 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, a process so burdensome that the agency itself acknowledged it had become a bottleneck. Part 107 replaced the exemption regime with a set of operational rules and a single certification requirement: anyone flying a small unmanned aircraft for compensation must hold a Remote Pilot Certificate, which is granted on the basis of a written knowledge test administered at an FAA-approved testing center.
The knowledge test is, on the face of the regulation, the central piece of operator discipline. It is also, on closer inspection, a strikingly thin one. This Article examines what the Part 107 testing regime covers, what it omits, and what the omissions tell us about the regulatory bargain the FAA struck in 2016. The argument is not that Part 107 is bad regulation. It is that the testing component is the weakest link in an otherwise reasonable framework, and that the gap between what the test measures and what safe operation actually requires has begun to show in the accident data.
The Part 107 Framework
Part 107 applies to unmanned aircraft weighing less than 55 pounds operated for purposes other than recreation or hobby. The framework imposes daylight-only operation, visual line of sight, a maximum altitude of 400 feet above ground level, a maximum speed of 100 miles per hour, and a prohibition on flights over people not directly involved in the operation. Operations outside these parameters require a waiver, and the FAA has issued thousands of waivers since 2016 for night flights, beyond-line-of-sight operations, and flights over people.
The certification requirement is straightforward. An applicant must be at least sixteen years old, must be able to read, speak, write, and understand English, and must pass an aeronautical knowledge test at an FAA-approved testing center. The test is multiple choice, lasts approximately two hours, and is graded immediately. A passing score is 70 percent. Once issued, the Remote Pilot Certificate is valid for two years and is renewed by passing a recurrent knowledge test.
What the Test Measures
The published knowledge test guide identifies fourteen subject areas. These include airspace classification and operating requirements, weather and its effects on small unmanned aircraft performance, loading and performance, emergency procedures, crew resource management, radio communication procedures, determining the performance of small unmanned aircraft, physiological effects of drugs and alcohol, aeronautical decision-making and judgment, airport operations, maintenance and preflight inspection, and the regulations of Part 107 itself.
The list is broad, and the questions on the actual test are well drafted. Anyone who passes the test has demonstrated familiarity with the regulatory framework and a baseline understanding of aviation concepts. The test is competently designed and competently administered. What it does not measure is whether the candidate can actually fly the aircraft.
The Missing Practical Component
Manned aircraft certification has, since the earliest days of civil aviation, included both a written knowledge test and a practical flight test. A private pilot candidate must pass the FAA written exam and must also fly with a designated examiner who evaluates the candidate’s ability to operate the aircraft, recover from emergencies, and execute the maneuvers required by the airman certification standards. The practical test is the longer and more demanding of the two, and the practical test is what most pilots remember from their training.
Part 107 has no practical test. A Remote Pilot Certificate holder may have spent thousands of hours flying small unmanned aircraft, or may have spent zero. The certification regime cannot tell the difference. The omission was a deliberate choice by the FAA, motivated by the difficulty of standardizing a practical test across the diversity of small unmanned aircraft platforms and by the agency’s assessment that the cost of a practical test would have substantially raised the barrier to entry for an industry the agency wanted to encourage.
The choice was defensible in 2016, when the agency was building a regulatory framework from scratch and could not predict how the industry would develop. Eight years later the case for revisiting it is stronger. The accident data assembled by the FAA and by independent researchers show that operator error remains the leading cause of small unmanned aircraft incidents, and that the errors are concentrated in categories that a practical test would have caught: improper preflight inspection, loss of orientation, failure to maintain visual contact, and inadequate response to unexpected wind. Knowledge of the regulations is necessary for safe operation. It is not sufficient.
Drop Testing and Operations Over People
One of the more contested aspects of Part 107 is the prohibition on flights over uninvolved persons. The prohibition is the regulatory expression of a simple physical fact: a small unmanned aircraft that fails in flight will fall, and the consequences for anyone underneath can be severe. The FAA has authorized waivers for operations over people in specific circumstances, but the standard regime treats overflight as the most dangerous category of operation.
The technical work supporting the prohibition is the body of research known as drop testing, in which researchers measure what happens when a small unmanned aircraft of given mass and configuration falls onto a target representing a human body. The data show, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the probability of serious injury depends on the mass of the aircraft, the height from which it falls, and the orientation at impact. Industry groups have used drop testing data to develop standards for operations over people, including the ASTM F38 standards that the FAA cited in its 2021 rulemaking permitting operations over people for aircraft meeting specified injury criteria.
The interaction between drop testing standards and operator training is the topic of greatest regulatory interest going forward. An operator who understands the drop physics of her aircraft will plan flights differently than one who does not. The Part 107 knowledge test does not currently test that understanding in any meaningful way. As the journal’s analysis of autonomous vehicle liability has documented, the assumption that automation reduces the importance of operator training has not held up well in other transportation domains, and there is no obvious reason to expect it to hold up in this one.
The Self-Regulation Question
The Part 107 framework leans heavily on industry self-regulation to fill in the gaps that the federal rules do not address. Manufacturers issue their own training materials. Trade associations develop best practices. Insurance underwriters require operators to demonstrate proficiency before issuing coverage. Major commercial users of drones impose internal certification requirements on their pilots that exceed the federal minimum.
Self-regulation of this kind has its merits. The technology is changing quickly enough that any federal rule will be partially obsolete by the time it is finalized, and industry actors closer to the technology can adjust their internal standards more nimbly than the FAA can adjust its regulations. The merits are real but they are not unlimited. Self-regulation works best when the costs of failure fall on the firms doing the regulating. When a hobby drone falls on a child at a wedding, the cost falls on the family, not on the manufacturer or the operator’s trade association. The mismatch is the standard reason regulators do not leave safety entirely to the industry being regulated.
A Proposal
The Part 107 testing regime should be supplemented, not replaced, by a practical component administered by designated proficiency evaluators along the model of the manned aviation flight test. The practical component need not be elaborate. It should require the candidate to demonstrate preflight inspection, basic flight maneuvers, lost-link procedures, and an emergency landing. It should be specific to the class of aircraft the candidate intends to operate, with separate endorsements for multirotor, fixed-wing, and other configurations. It should be valid for the same two-year period as the knowledge test.
The cost of such a regime would be modest by aviation standards. The benefit would be the closing of a gap in operator discipline that the existing regime cannot address. The drone industry has matured to the point where the original regulatory bargain — thin certification in exchange for rapid commercial adoption — is no longer the right one. A more demanding training and testing framework would be a sign that the industry has grown up.
Conclusion
Part 107 has succeeded in its primary objective. Commercial drone operations have grown enormously since 2016, and the regulatory framework has accommodated that growth without imposing the case-by-case bottleneck of the Section 333 era. The success has come at the cost of a certification regime that measures knowledge of the rules without measuring the ability to fly the aircraft. The cost was acceptable in the early years of the framework. It is becoming less acceptable as the industry matures and as the consequences of operator error become better documented. The next iteration of Part 107 should close the gap.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is FAA Part 107?
FAA Part 107 is the federal regulation governing the commercial operation of small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) under 55 pounds in the United States. It was issued in 2016 and replaced the case-by-case Section 333 exemption process. Part 107 establishes operational rules for commercial drone flights and requires operators to obtain a Remote Pilot Certificate.
What does the Remote Pilot Certificate test cover?
The knowledge test covers airspace classification and operating requirements, weather, loading and performance, emergency procedures, crew resource management, radio communication, decision-making, airport operations, maintenance and preflight inspection, and Part 107 itself. The test does not include any practical flight component.
What is drop testing in the UAS context?
Drop testing refers to controlled experiments measuring what happens when a small unmanned aircraft falls to the ground. Drop testing data informs both equipment design standards and operational restrictions on flights over uninvolved persons.
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