6.5 After You Pass

14 min · UA.I.C.K4

You passed. Before you celebrate, do the paperwork - it takes about fifteen minutes and it starts a clock you would rather have started today than next week.

Step 1 — FAA Form 8710-13 in IACRA

You leave the testing center with your Airman Knowledge Test Report, which carries your score and a 17-digit exam identification number. That number is what links your test result to your application. The result also posts electronically, generally within about 48 hours, so if IACRA cannot find your test on the same evening, wait a day and try again.

1. Log in to iacra.faa.gov with the account you created in lesson 6.1, as an Applicant.
2. Choose Start New Application. Application type: Pilot. Certifications: Remote Pilot. Then Start Application.
3. Work through the sections. IACRA is populating FAA Form 8710-13, the Remote Pilot Certificate application.
4. Enter your 17-digit exam ID from the test report when asked for knowledge test information.
5. Review every page. An error here delays the certificate and is tedious to correct afterwards.
6. Sign electronically and submit. You will receive a confirmation email.

Step 2 — the TSA security threat assessment

Submitting the application automatically initiates a TSA security threat assessment. You do nothing - no separate form, no fee, no appointment. The TSA screens the application against its watch lists and returns a result to the FAA.

For the overwhelming majority of applicants this completes within a few minutes to a few days. When it clears, you receive an email telling you that you may log back into IACRA and print your temporary certificate. If it takes longer than a couple of weeks, that is unusual but not alarming - it is a queue, not an accusation.

Step 3 — temporary certificate, then the permanent card

Once the TSA vetting clears, log back into IACRA and print your temporary remote pilot certificate. This is a full-privilege certificate. You may fly commercially the moment you have it in hand.

The permanent plastic card arrives by mail, typically within six to eight weeks. When it does, retire the paper copy. If 120 days pass and no card has arrived, contact the FAA Airman Certification Branch - do not keep flying on an expired temporary.

Register the aircraft — the certificate is not enough

Your certificate makes you legal. It says nothing about your aircraft. Under Part 107 every small unmanned aircraft must be registered before it flies, at any weight. The 0.55-pound exemption in §48.15 applies only to aircraft flown *exclusively* under the recreational exception, so it never covers a Part 107 flight.

• Register at FAADroneZone under Part 48. The fee is $5 per aircraft and registration is valid for 3 years.
• Under Part 107 each aircraft is registered individually and receives its own registration number. That differs from recreational registration, where one number covers all of a person's aircraft.
• The registration number must be displayed on the exterior surface of the aircraft, legible and readable without tools.
• Keep the Certificate of Aircraft Registration available - electronically is fine - whenever you fly, per 107.13 and 91.203(a)(2).
• If you use standard Remote ID or a broadcast module, the aircraft or module serial number must be listed on the Certificate of Aircraft Registration.

Staying current — and the thing everyone gets wrong

Here is the single most misstated fact in Part 107, and you will hear it repeated by people who should know better. Your remote pilot certificate never expires. There is no expiry date on the card and no renewal to pay for.

What has a clock on it is your aeronautical knowledge recency, and since 6 April 2021 the way you satisfy it is a free online course, not a test at a testing center. The course is ALC-677, Part 107 Small UAS Recurrent, hosted on the FAA Safety Team site at faasafety.gov. It takes an hour or two, you may retry any question, and you print a certificate of completion at the end. Part 61 certificated pilots who meet the 61.56 flight review requirement use ALC-515 instead.

Calendar months means the end of the month, not the anniversary of the day. Pass your initial test on 12 March 2026 and your recency runs through 31 March 2028. Keep the completion certificate with your records - there is no central place a law enforcement officer can look it up in the field.

Getting the first paid job

The certificate is the beginning of the business, not the end of it. What actually converts it into income, in rough order of how much difference each makes:

1. A portfolio of five to ten finished pieces in one niche. Not a reel of everything you have ever shot - five roof inspections, or five listings, done to the standard a client would pay for. Shoot them free if you have to.
2. Pick one niche and be specific. Real estate. Roof inspection. Construction progress. Agriculture. Being the person who does roofs beats being a drone pilot who does anything.
3. Liability insurance. On-demand hourly policies exist and are inexpensive. Most commercial clients require a certificate of insurance before you set foot on site, and many will name themselves as additionally insured.
4. A simple, written deliverable standard. How many images, at what resolution, delivered how, within how long. Clients pay for predictability more than for artistry.
5. Local outreach beats a website. Roofing companies, real estate agents, surveyors, and general contractors within twenty miles of you. Show up with the portfolio.
6. Keep flight and maintenance logs from your very first flight. They cost nothing, they establish your maintenance schedule, and they are what you produce if anyone ever asks what happened.

That is the whole path, from a blank IACRA account to a paying job. You learned a body of material most people find intimidating, you passed a federal aviation knowledge test, and you are now one of a few hundred thousand people in the country lawfully able to fly a drone for hire. Go do the work.