Drone Pilot Ground School Celebrates Its Fifth Anniversary

BY Zacc Dukowitz

29 July 2021

Drone Pilot Ground School—UAV Coach’s flagship course to help drone pilots prepare for the FAA’s Part 107 test—turns five years old this week.

The online test prep course was first launched back in 2016, right when the FAA’s Part 107 rules for commercial drone operations went into effect.

Since launching Drone Pilot Ground School we have trained over 35,000 drone pilots and over 99% of our students who report back pass the test on the first try.

Thinking about Becoming a Certified Drone Pilot?

If you want to fly a drone for any non-recreational purpose, you must become a certified commercial drone pilot by getting a Remote Pilot Certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Use this chart to determine whether you need a drone license:

Wondering what you have to do to become an FAA-certified drone pilot in addition to taking the Part 107 test?

To celebrate our fifth anniversary, we’ll be hosting a free webinar next week called How to Ace FAA’s Part 107 Exam and Become a Certified Drone Pilot. In the webinar we’ll walk you through everything you need to do to become a certified commercial drone pilot, including tips for getting ready for the FAA’s Part 107 test.

The webinar takes place on Wednesday, August 4 at 1 p.m. EST. Register now to save your spot.

The History of UAV Coach’s Commitment to Drone Education

UAV Coach was founded in 2014, when the drone industry was still in its infancy.

Given how new drone technology was, the FAA had not yet established rules for drone pilots who wanted to use drones to do work.

From 2014 to 2016, the only path commercial drone pilots could take to get permission to operate was to secure a Section 333 exemption—a fairly involved process, which only gave drone pilots permission to operate for two years.

In 2015, the FAA published a draft version of the rules that would ultimately become the Part 107 rules for commercial drone operations. At UAV Coach, we had committed ourselves to providing education and resources to support the safe operation of drones, and we decided to create a course to help drone pilots prepare for the FAA’s new knowledge test.

In June of 2016, the FAA announced that the Part 107 rules would go into effect in two months.

With that deadline in mind, we took the research we had done and began building our first version of Drone Pilot Ground School, an online test prep course for the Part 107 test.

When we launched our course that August we immediately saw the impact.

Drone pilots who were struggling to find all the information they needed to prepare for the test could get everything in one place, from Drone Pilot Ground School. We knew that test prep was challenging, so we prioritized student support, helping our drone pilots with answers to tricky questions about airspace or other challenging topics so they could be as prepared as possible when they took the test.

Other Educational Resources We Provide

UAV Coach is constantly looking for ways to provide high quality education and resources to both commercial and recreational drone pilots.

In addition to Drone Pilot Ground School, we offer several other resources:

What Our Students Say

Here is some feedback from our students at Drone Pilot Ground School:

I wanted to let you know that I think your course is without a doubt the best way to increase your chances to pass the FAA’s Aeronautical Knowledge Test. I could not imagine having to learn and decipher all the information on my own. Your email support is amazing!

– John in Washington

Easy to understand, accurate information! This course helped me not only pass my exam, but receive a 100% final score!

– Sami in New York

Great course! I passed my UAG test with a 92% score on the first try. I really enjoyed taking this course. It was certainly not easy, and it was definitely time-consuming, but Alan and Mike provided the right information in segments that made it easier to digest. Well worth the effort!

– Chris in New Jersey