The names ow David Zhou and I’ve got a license to fly hey what is up guys David’s out here and today I got something very exciting in the mail from the FAA. My part 107 remote pilot’s license this time.

I’m super stoked about this for a lot of reasons, but one of the big reasons it’s kind of silly. I think this is just got it really cool to have a license. That says I can fly that’s pretty dope. So today I wanted to talk about what exactly is a part 107 remote pilot license? Do you need one who even needs one and also how you might get one if you wanted to so what even is this whole part 107 thing well under the FAA s, small unmanned aircraft systems rule or part 107? If you’re planning on commercially operating a small unmanned aircraft, then you’re supposed to have a remote pilot license so who actually needs a part 107 license.

Well, technically anybody that makes money with a drone. So if you produce stock footage or stock photos with aerial photography, then that would count you, maybe you surveil and/or, perform home inspections and you use a drone to get photos and yes, technically, even YouTube.

If you make money off of YouTube and your YouTube, videos have drones in them. Technically I mean, of course, this is an interesting line to walk, but technically you’re supposed to also have a license, and yes, I’m.

Also talking to you, wedding videographers, you’re all supposed to have this license too. So maybe you might be thinking well, I’ve, been operating a drone recreationally recreationally for a while. Now you know whether it’s.

Videos for weddings or just grabbing a few aerial photos for your real estate, business and yeah. There is no SWAT team knocking down your door, but technically, legally and ethically you’re supposed to have a part 107 license to perform those services.

But that’s, not all it’s, not just a car that you flash when you might be in trouble for flying somewhere. You’re, not supposed to fly with the license. You also have the ability to request airspace authorization flying in places that you normally wouldn’t be able to let’s, say in a city or potentially near an airport.

The closer you get to an airport. It becomes extremely restricted. Even for people who are licensed, but it gives you the ability to make that request, but we’ll, get back to that at the end of the video first, let’s.

Talk about what’s required. If you want to get a part 107 license, so, according to the FAA regulations, in order to get a part 107 certification, you must be at least 16 years old, be able to read, speak, write and understand English.

You must be in a physical and mental condition to fly safely and as well as past the initial aeronautical knowledge exam. So, assuming that you qualify for the first three things, the OL you really have to do right now, if you wanted to become a licensed pilot, is to pass the initial aeronautical knowledge exam.

So the first thing you’re gonna want to do is to schedule an exam. So if you go to the FAA gov website, there’s, a tool there, that you can click on, which will take you to a list of nearby testing centers that can administer this test and to book a test.

It’s. Gon na cost you anywhere between 90 dollars, 150 ish. Everyone kept telling me that it cost them 150 dollars and most of the testing centers cost that much except. I noticed that it was 90 dollars for the test and then usually like 50 60 bucks as a convenience fee.

I don’t know if that’s, just a local thing here in Tampa Florida, but I would shop around if you don’t mind driving an extra five 10 minutes to a testing center. Just save yourself, 60 bucks and obviously I’m gonna assume your next question.

Isn’t me. Well, how do I study for this exam? There are a bunch of paid drone schools out there. There’s, in-person ones in classrooms, as well as online ones, would just give you like a video course that kind of teaches you everything that you need to know to prepare you for the exam.

However, I would say before you spend money on a drone school, you can get a lot of this knowledge for free online, specifically Tony Northrup on his channel. He put up a. I think it was like almost a two hour, long video it’s.

Basically, a study guide covering just about everything that’s in the exam all I did to take. This exam was watch that video twice and take the practice exam twice as well, and I took it the next day and I ended up passing in like the mid-90s, of course.

That all depends on how good you are in basic test taking skills. Some people struggle more than others with testing. So if you’re one of those people, I highly recommend obviously spending more time reviewing the material.

But if you feel like after you’ve done the practice exam that you feel really confident. Then maybe you have a pretty good shot. One good thing to note is that it’s. All multiple-choice and all the multiple choices only have three possible answers, so you actually have a 33 % chance of guessing a question correctly, so that kind of makes things a lot easier.

It honestly was a pretty easy exam once you understand the content, that’s, gonna be on there. Everything is pretty straightforward. So speaking of this content, that’s on the exam, what’s? The content? So I made a list here because I couldn’t memorize this, so the exams gonna give you a mixture of topics like basic drone operation knowledge.

Now that’s, gonna, be like facts like how you can only fly up to 400 feet above ground level or 400 feet above the building. You’re currently flying over, but also certain distances under clouds. So the exam might ask you a question like how high can you fly if you’re flying over a building, but the cloud level is here and you just have to do some quick math and for basic drone knowledge there’s.

Other things that it covers, like hey: how fast can you fly a drone and the rule is up to 100 miles per hour and no more or things like yielding to manned aircraft, then the harder stuff that when you take this exam or to look at the Practice questions you’re gonna be like how does this apply to flying a drone? Well, the basic aeronautical initial exam really test you on kind of like hey here,’s, some things you should know about this whole field, so that’s.

Gon na include things like learning how to read weather reports that are like pretty archaic, because if you’re a pilot, you would use an app or a program that would show you visually and also just give you details as opposed to reading.

Like a 500 character, printout and you have to figure out all the abbreviations, but you have to understand weather reports like meet our reports. You’re. Also gonna have to understand what kind of air spaces mean.

What at what point does a specific air space start and end, and also how to read these aneurysm inducing sectional charts? There are, I think, 20 % of my exam – hmm, maybe 40 % of my exam was looking at these sectional charts and at first it is so overwhelming, because there’s, so much happening on here.

Whoever designed a sectional charts just hated readability. Like look at these look at these sectional charts, it boggles my mind, but here’s, the cool thing. After studying for this exam, these charts actually make sense to me, and I actually know what to look for so again.

If you took this test with zero review, you’re gonna have no idear gonna bomb it, but the second you start learning about these things. It’s. Gon na be so easy to take this exam, because once you learn it, you really don’t forget it and it helps that there’s, a legend in the front of the book that they hand you.

They give you a Arman’s manual and in the front of that book. If you understand read that legend, no matter what map you look at, if you don’t know what something is like. What’s? A purple border around an area mean what kind of air spaces.

Well, if you refer to the manual, it will actually tell you so really learning to take. The exam is just learning how to understand the legend of the manual, and that covers you for, like 40 to 50 percent of the exam and then the last content that the exam kind of covers is gonna, be things like basic risk management and situational awareness.

So it’ll prompt you questions like hey there’s, a plane coming your way. What should you do and one of the answers like stay still, one of the answers like fly around it and the other answer is just like get out of the way and that’s, that’s, pretty simple! It’s, just get out of the way right and at the end of the day, you need, I think, either a 70 or 75 % to pass.

I mean it’s, a weighted scale, but it’s, not the highest bar. I’ve ever seen. This exam felt pretty easy all said and done it’s. Gon na be overwhelming at first but watch Tony’s, video and if the first time it doesn’t make sense, watch it again, and it really is just absorbing the information being thrown at you and be like alright.

That’s, how things work cool and once you take your exam, you’re gonna get a printed-out result sheet from your testing center and it’ll. Tell you if you pass or failed. If you pass, you just go home, go on to the FAA website, you submit your exam grade along with your testing reference number and then they’ll, send you a temporary digital certificate and, of course, government being slow.

It’ll. Take you about eight to ten weeks until you actually get the physical card in the mail. So what now now that you have a part 107 license, what can you do with it? Well, one of the big things is, if you take on big jobs or corporate jobs, for example, like recently when I did a shoot for a football stadium and they initially wanted drone photography.

The first thing their legal department asked for is one: are you certified into do? You have FA airspace authorization? The answer at that time was: yes, I do have it, but no, we couldn’t, get authorization to fly because it is very, very, very close to an airport and we tried three times and the request got rejected all three times, but that’s because it was extremely extremely close to the airport, the radius around the airport, kind of falls off in terms of the height ceiling and the farther away you get the higher the height ceiling.

You can get not if you’re, a recreational flier, though, if you’re, a recreational fly, it’s. Usually the radius where you cannot fly is much bigger. If you have a certification number, however, you can use a system called the la ANC or low altitude authorization and notification capability.

It’s, a joint effort between the FAA and the private industry to kind of streamline these requests so, instead of mailing in or submitting a digital request form, which can take anywhere between 2 to 12 weeks for them to approve, you can use any Apps that have L a and C enabled capabilities to directly communicate between the app and your nearest flight control tower of where you want to fly, and you can get instantaneous confirmation, an authorization to fly in a certain area.

So this is really neat because technically you’re, not really supposed to fly in certain city limits because of helipad and stuff like that. But because it’s, not actually that heavy of air traffic, you can use the LA and see a system to get authorization.

And now you can fly in certain smaller cities or in certain areas that you couldn’t before and if somebody comes up to you, whether it’s, an authority or you know a business owner and they’re. Like hey, are you supposed to be flying that here you’ll, just be like what cha here’s, my ID yes, sir ma & # 39? Am I’m allowed to, of course, assuming you’re following the rules, but it’s.

Nice, because you know, I think, as guerrilla filmmakers and indie filmmakers. You’re, always shooting in places without permits, or without permission and most of the time it’s cool. But when it’s, something like you’re flying a drone.

You know some people can get real worked up about it and if you have the proper authorization to use it, then hey you’re in the right to be there to film and record. If you’re in the neighborhood and taking aerial photos for a property for a real estate agent and the neighbor comes, I think, hey I don’t like the fact that you’re filming here.

We’re, taking photos as long as you were following rules. If they called the cops and the cops came, you could just show them your certification and they’ll, be like yeah. They’re in the right like this.

Is this is legally allowed to perform this commercial operation? Alright, I hope you guys learned something new today from this video. I really hope you enjoyed it as usual. If you did enjoy it, leave a thumbs up on the video down below don’t.

Forget to subscribe and ring that notification bell if you want to stay up to date, whatever I release a brand new video just like this one in the comment section down below, let me know: do you fly drones? Do you fly drones often, and are you certified if you have any tips or tricks you want to share with the community on taking the exam down there? You know where to leave them and as usual guys, I will see you in the next video peace, [.

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