Part 107 ACS Task Area 5: Operations

Operations is Task Area 5 of the Unmanned Aircraft General, Small (UAG) Airman Certification Standards (ACS). Where Task Area 1 (Applicable Regulations) tests whether you know the rules, and Task Area 4 tests the physics of loading and performance, Operations tests whether you can apply both under realistic operating conditions: working with a team, handling something going wrong, and planning a flight responsibly before you ever take off. It is the most scenario-heavy task area on the test, so pure memorization matters less here than reasoning through what a responsible remote pilot in command would actually do.

Crew resource management (CRM)

Even a one-person drone operation involves crew resource management (CRM), the practice of using all available resources, human and informational, to run a safe flight. Under Part 107, the remote pilot in command may work with visual observers, people whose job is to help maintain visual line of sight (VLOS) on the aircraft and scan for hazards the pilot cannot see while focused on the controller or a display. The test expects you to know the visual observer’s role (they support the pilot’s VLOS responsibility, they do not replace the pilot’s authority or final decision-making), and the general CRM principle that briefing roles and communication expectations before flight, not improvising them mid-flight, is what actually prevents incidents.

Preflight planning and risk assessment

Before any flight, a remote pilot is expected to assess the operation: the site (obstacles, people, other aircraft activity, airspace), the aircraft’s condition and battery state, current and forecast weather, and any operational limitations that apply (authorization status, waiver conditions if any apply to that flight). This is deliberately connected to the other task areas: a real preflight assessment pulls together regulatory limits (Task Area 1), airspace status (Task Area 2), weather (Task Area 3), and loading and performance (Task Area 4) into one go or no-go decision, which is exactly why Operations tends to sit last in a study sequence, after the building blocks it draws on.

Emergency and lost-link procedures

The test expects familiarity with how a remote pilot should respond when something goes wrong mid-flight, most commonly a lost control link (the connection between the controller and the aircraft is interrupted). Most modern small UAS have a programmed lost-link behavior, commonly returning to a home point or landing in place, and the remote pilot in command remains responsible for the aircraft’s actions during a lost-link event even though they have no direct input at that moment. The broader principle the test is checking is that “automated” does not mean “no longer the pilot’s responsibility,” a distinction that shows up in more than one scenario question.

Operational limitations

This task area also covers a handful of specific operating restrictions beyond the core rules in Task Area 1: the one-aircraft-per-pilot limit, the restrictions on operating from a moving vehicle, and the conditions under which a remote pilot may operate more than one small UAS (only with additional visual observers and a specific division of duties, and even then subject to the usual VLOS requirement for each aircraft). These limitations exist to keep a single remote pilot’s actual span of attention realistic, which is the throughline for most of this task area: the rules assume one person cannot safely do everything at once, and ask you to recognize when an operation has exceeded what one pilot (with or without visual observers) can reasonably manage.

How this gets tested

Expect scenario questions built around a described flight (a team, a site, a sequence of events) that ask what the remote pilot in command should do, who is responsible for a given decision, or whether a described crew setup satisfies Part 107’s requirements. Because this task area draws on material from the earlier ones, it rewards studying it last, once the underlying regulations, airspace rules, weather reading, and performance concepts are solid. Run scenario-style questions in the free practice bank to practice applying earlier task areas together the way this section actually tests them.