sUAS Night Operations, Best Practices
FAAsafety.gov Course Code: ALC-703
INTRODUCTION
With the FAA recently clearing the way for efficient access to Night Operations/Night Flight for Commercial and Recreational UA/drone pilots, understanding the challenges gains greater importance, as Night Operations become more prevalent.
Flight in the dark hours and areas present greater challenges. The idea of “I can see the aircraft better because it’s lighted” ignores many key elements and challenges related to night flight. Scotopic/mesopic vision, parallax issues, night blindness, rod blow-out, and other factors significantly increase the risk factor, and mitigation factors for UA in the night.
In this seminar, we’ll discuss optical (eyesight) issues, risk mitigations for all challenging components, discuss which lighting equipment is best vs accessing the bare minimum equipment requirements, safety protocols, industry standards/best practices, and planning operations for maximum success.
Others may take this course as a self-study resource:
Anyone interested in learning more about 14 CFR Part 107 or Drone Flight Operations
Public safety departments with or starting a drone program
Other corporate flight departments or small businesses wishing to perform UAS operations
FAASTeam DronePros and other FAAST Volunteer Representatives
Aviation Safety Inspectors (ASIs)
Aviation Safety Technicians (ASTs)
FAASTeam Program Managers (FPMs)
COURSE STRUCTURE
This course will take about 1-hour to complete.
Instruction is based on a 1-hour video presentation. Upon completion of the presentation, related links with reference materials will be available for review. Following the review period is an exam.
The exam is a multiple choice and must be taken in a single session. The exam is 20-35 questions chosen at random, a passing score of 100% is required for a completion certificate.
The presentation was given live on June 14, 2021 and June 21 2021 as SPANS webinars EA17105553 and EA17105761.
The course was created on www.FAAsafety.gov following the live showing. The video replay can also be found by visiting Influential Drones YouTube Channel.
The presenter of the video is Douglas Spotted Eagle from Sundance Media Group and Dave Krause from Influential Drones. The FAA representative in the presentation was Eric Sieracki, AFG-700 EA17 FSDO
COURSE CREDIT
To receive appropriate course credit for this course you must:
- Have an account on www.FAASafety.gov
- Be logged into that account
- Be enrolled in the course
- You must visit and complete each chapter of this course
NOTE: Some links may take you to other sites or open windows on top of the course window. You will need to return to this course on FAASafety.gov to complete the online exam. This might be as simple as closing all the additional windows. However, you may find it necessary to return to FAASafety.gov, log in again, and then "continue" the course from the Course List.
Upon completion of the review section the "EXAM" button will turn blue indicating you are ready to start the examination. Upon successful completion of the exam you are given the appropriate course credit automatically. You may then print a course completion certificate.
TROUBLESHOOTING
If you have difficulty reaching the Review and/or Exam sections after viewing the course, please go to your account on www.FAASafety.gov, log in, go to your Courses In Progress page (located under the Courses link under the Activities, Courses & Seminars tab), and click on Continue. If the Review and/or Exam buttons are "grayed out", be sure each of the previous chapter buttons are completed by clicking on each in turn. This will activate the Review button, which when clicked, will activate the Exam button
For all other problems, concerns, or questions with the site or how this course runs on your system please contact us by e-mail at faasafety@faa.gov. Please be sure to reference Course Code ALC-704. For a faster response, please include as am email cc: "faasteam@influentialdrones.com".
Thank you!
