Decision-making — Part 107 practice questions

10 practice questions on decision-making from the FAA remote pilot knowledge test, each with the correct answer and why it is correct.

1. 01

   A remote pilot reacts to an unexpected radio call by immediately descending without evaluating the situation. Which hazardous attitude does this illustrate?

   • ImpulsivityCorrect
   • Macho
   • Resignation
   • Anti-authority
   Why

   Acting before assessing is impulsivity — the need to do something, anything, right now. Its antidote, "not so fast, think first", is about inserting a pause rather than choosing a different action. The descent may even have been correct; arriving at it without evaluation is what makes it hazardous.

2. 02

   A client is waiting on site and the weather is marginal. Which PAVE category does the client's presence fall under?

   • External pressuresCorrect
   • Pilot
   • Aircraft
   • enVironment
   Why

   External pressures — nothing to do with the flight itself, everything to do with whether the flight happens. It is the category most likely to override the other three, which is precisely why PAVE names it rather than leaving it as background.

3. 03

   Which two factors are combined in a risk assessment matrix?

   • The likelihood of an event and the severity of its consequencesCorrect
   • The cost of the aircraft and the value of the contract
   • The pilot's total flight hours and the age of the aircraft
   • The wind speed and the visibility
   Why

   Likelihood and severity. Either alone is misleading: something almost certain but trivial and something catastrophic but vanishingly rare can sit at the same point on one axis and nowhere near each other on the matrix. Combining them is what turns a list of hazards into a ranking.

4. 04

   What is the final step of the DECIDE model?

   • Evaluate the effect of the action takenCorrect
   • Detect that a change has occurred
   • Do the chosen action
   • Choose a desirable outcome
   Why

   Evaluate the effect of the action taken — and then feed that back into detecting the next change. The loop is the point. A model that ended at "do" would let a pilot act once on a situation that has since moved on.

5. 05

   What is the antidote to the hazardous attitude of invulnerability?

   • It could happen to meCorrect
   • Not so fast, think first
   • Follow the rules, they are usually right
   • I am not helpless, I can make a difference
   Why

   "It could happen to me." Invulnerability is not the belief that accidents never happen; it is the belief that they happen to other people. The antidote is deliberately worded in the first person, because the gap it has to close is between an abstract risk and a personal one.

6. 06

   In the PAVE checklist, what does the E represent?

   • External pressuresCorrect
   • Equipment
   • Endurance
   • Emergency planning
   Why

   External pressures. The four categories are Pilot, Aircraft, enVironment and External pressures — note that the V comes from the middle of enVironment, which is what makes the E available for the category pilots most often skip. Equipment is covered under Aircraft.

7. 07

   Which hazardous attitude is characterized by a pilot believing that what happens is beyond their control?

   • ResignationCorrect
   • Invulnerability
   • Macho
   • Impulsivity
   Why

   Resignation — leaving the outcome to luck, the weather, or somebody else. Its antidote, "I am not helpless, I can make a difference", is the only one that has to restore a sense of agency rather than restrain one, which is what sets it apart from the other four.

8. 08

   What is aeronautical decision-making (ADM)?

   • A systematic approach to determining the best course of action for a given set of circumstancesCorrect
   • A checklist of maintenance actions performed before every flight
   • The regulatory process for obtaining a certificate of waiver
   • The procedure for reporting an accident to the FAA
   Why

   ADM is a deliberate method for arriving at the best course of action, applied to circumstances as they change. It is learned rather than innate, which is the useful part: a pilot who has practised a decision framework has something to fall back on when judgment alone would be running on adrenaline.

9. 09

   A remote pilot thinks, 'The rules do not really apply to an operation this small.' Which hazardous attitude is this?

   • Anti-authorityCorrect
   • Impulsivity
   • Invulnerability
   • Resignation
   Why

   Dismissing a rule as inapplicable to you is anti-authority, whose antidote is "follow the rules, they are usually right". Note it is the reasoning that classifies the attitude, not the outcome — the same shortcut taken without thinking would be impulsivity, and taken believing nothing could go wrong would be invulnerability.

10. 10

    Why is complacency a hazard on routine, familiar operations?

    • Expectation of the usual outcome begins to replace active observationCorrect
    • Familiar sites are more likely to lie in controlled airspace
    • Repeated flights shorten the aircraft's maintenance intervals
    • Routine operations are legally required to carry a visual observer
    Why

    Because familiarity substitutes expectation for observation. On the twentieth flight over the same site the pilot is checking against memory rather than looking, and the one day something differs is the day it goes unseen. Nothing about the site has changed; the quality of attention has.