Matthew Dobrski
First Officer
Flight distance : 1831050 ft
Canada
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Before this Summer, every owner of a drone in Canada must register his/her bird and pass the knowledge exam. I just took online exam for advanced certificate and ... failed spectacularly. Immediately after I took supposedly easier exam for basic certificate, and failed again.
The reason? Approximately 75% of exam questions is absurdly irrelevant and unrelated to the scope of typical recreational flying the basic certificate is designated for. I may understand the complexity of advanced operations and required knowledge, but requirements to get basic certificate for Spark pilots? As an enthusiast, hobbyist and amateur landscape photographer I have no idea nor care about radio communication frequencies, wordings and procedures, Canada Flight Suplement documents, aviation time zones, navigation map types, names of clouds or the functions of a rudder stick in between bi-plane pilot's legs. I don't know if 10 hours of recovering is enough between emptying Jack Daniels at a campfire and safely flying a drone ... Maybe 24 hours is a statutory requirement to be back in good shape?
To avoid possible accusations of taking the matter lightly, I purchased theorethical ground school training some time ago, provided by one of officially recognized local companies. It was a waste of time and money, 750 USD for 16 hrs long course targeting commercial drone pilots I have no intention to be. The irony is that the same, mostly irrelevant topics I didn't care to memorize are - in fact - included in basic certificate exam questions.
So, what next? I can take the online exam as many times as I wish, paying $10 each time until I get passing 60% correct answers for 30 multiple choice questions. Anyone knows how many charts of Visual Flight Rules Terminal Area is published by NAV Canada? What, you don't know what VTA is???!!!
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