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Ten Ways Candidates Fail an RPAS Flight Review

Written by a working flight reviewer · Current to the regulations in force in 2026

I conduct Advanced flight reviews across Southern Ontario, which means I spend a lot of mornings standing in a field watching someone explain an operation to me. The pattern in what goes wrong is remarkably consistent, and it is almost never the flying. Candidates prepare for the wrong thing: they practise manoeuvres and neglect the twenty minutes of conversation that actually decides the outcome.

What follows is that pattern, written from my side of the clipboard. It is not a substitute for Transport Canada's own guidance, and reviewers differ in emphasis. But if you close ten of these ten holes, you will be a long way ahead of the average candidate.

1. The registration number can't be found

This is the most common failure of the day and the cheapest to prevent. Every RPA of 250 g or more must be registered and marked with its registration number — the letter C, a hyphen and ten digits — clearly displayed and legible without dismantling the aircraft.

What I see instead: a number written in marker on a battery that has since been swapped out. A label that lifted at the corner over a cold winter and finally let go. A number engraved somewhere that requires removing the shell. Or the number from the pilot's other drone.

Check it the night before, in the light, on the exact airframe you're bringing.

2. "It's uncontrolled" — with no answer to "how do you know?"

Establishing your airspace is not a conclusion, it's a method. When a candidate tells me the site is in uncontrolled airspace, the very next question is how they established that, and a surprising number have no answer beyond an app that showed green.

A good answer sounds like: here is the site on the chart, here is the nearest control zone and its boundary, here is its floor, here is the distance from the aerodrome, and here is the tool I cross-checked it with. You do not need to be dramatic about it. You need to be able to show your work.

3. The NOTAMs were checked last week

NOTAMs are a day-of task, not a planning task. Checking them when you booked the review and not again on the morning is a real answer I have received, and it tells me the candidate treats the check as a box rather than as information.

Check them the morning of. If there is nothing relevant, say so — "I checked at 07:40, nothing affecting the site" is a complete and confident answer.

4. The weather brief is "it looked fine"

You are not expected to produce a forecast discussion. You are expected to have looked at actual weather information, formed a view about whether the operation is safe and legal, and be able to state the numbers that mattered — wind and gusts at altitude, temperature, visibility, cloud, and anything trending during your window.

Candidates who can name their own personal limits ("I don't fly this airframe above 30 km/h gusts") tend to do well here, because it shows the judgement is pre-made rather than improvised under pressure.

5. Hazards are listed but not mitigated

A hazard register with ten entries and no mitigations is worse than one with three entries that are each properly handled. I am looking for the second half of the sentence: there is a road on the east boundary, so I have set my operating box thirty metres back from it and briefed my observer to call any vehicle that stops.

Identifying a risk and then flying into it anyway is the pattern that concerns a reviewer most, because it is exactly the pattern that shows up in incident reports.

6. No emergency plan that touches the real world

"Return to home" is a failsafe setting, not an emergency plan. Where is the nearest hospital. Where would you put the aircraft down if you had to do it right now, and is that spot still clear. What is the civic address you would give an emergency service — not "the field off the county road."

And know the difference between a lost link, where the aircraft is behaving as designed, and a fly-away, where it is not. If it becomes a fly-away, your first duty is to the people underneath it.

7. Briefing limits and then quietly exceeding them

This one costs otherwise-strong candidates. You tell me your operating box is a hundred metres square with a ceiling of sixty metres. Then, mid-flight, the shot is better a bit further out, and out you go.

Departing from your own briefed plan without stopping to re-brief is a problem even when the flying is tidy, because the whole point of the briefing is that it is the thing you have committed to. If circumstances genuinely change, land, say what you want to change and why, and go again. That is a strong outcome, not a weak one.

8. Losing the aircraft in the sun — and not admitting it

Visual line of sight means unaided visual contact, and every pilot occasionally loses the aircraft against sun, cloud or a treeline. What matters is what happens next.

The candidate who says "I've lost sight of it, I'm bringing it back toward me" has demonstrated exactly the awareness the review exists to test. The candidate who keeps flying and hopes has demonstrated something else. I am not scoring whether it happens. I am scoring what you do about it.

9. The flight ends at touchdown

The post-flight phase is real and people lose marks in it because they have mentally finished. Secure the aircraft. Handle the batteries properly, especially in cold or after a hard discharge. Complete the log while the detail is fresh. Debrief the flight honestly, including the bit that went less well.

A candidate who volunteers "my second orbit was sloppier than I'd like, I was watching the road" has told me more about their airmanship than a clean flight with no self-assessment.

10. Not knowing what the certificate actually lets you do

The rules changed materially in 2025, in two phases — 1 April and 4 November — and candidates who studied from older material arrive with an out-of-date picture of their own privileges. Expect to be asked what your Advanced certificate permits.

You should be able to say, without hedging, that flying closer than 30 m to bystanders or over people requires an aircraft carrying the manufacturer's safety assurance declaration for that operation; that controlled airspace needs a written RPAS Flight Authorization from NAV CANADA; that medium drones between 25 and 150 kg have been an advanced operation since November 2025; and that EVLOS is now available to you but only with a small aircraft, only in uncontrolled airspace, only within 2 NM of everyone involved, and only with an observer who holds at least a Basic certificate.

What actually gets you through

Read that list again and notice how little of it is flying. The review is an assessment of whether you operate like a pilot — whether you plan, brief, assess risk and respond to the unexpected in a structured, defensible way. Stick skills are assumed; judgement is examined.

If you do one thing this week, build a genuine site survey for your review location and then practise saying it out loud. Explaining an operation fluently under mild pressure is a different skill from having thought about it, and it is the skill being tested.

Related reading: what to expect at your flight review, the four phases in order · how to pass the Advanced RPAS exam · every Canadian drone rule and number on one page.