Airport and Seaplane Base Operations
Reading the surface
Airport operations questions test whether you can interpret markings, signs, lighting, and the traffic pattern. Learn the families: mandatory instruction signs (red background, white letters - hold short, runway location), location signs (black with yellow letters), direction/destination signs (yellow or green), and the runway holding position marking (two solid bars = hold short; solid plus dashed = on the movement side). A displaced threshold has arrows leading to it: you may taxi, take off, and roll out over that pavement, but you may not touch down there. Chevrons (yellow) mark a blast pad or stopway - never taxi, land, or take off on them.
Pattern and right-of-way
Standard traffic pattern is left turns; published TPA is in the Chart Supplement, otherwise typically 1,000 ft AGL. Right-of-way: an aircraft in distress, then a balloon, then a glider, then an airship, then the more helpless category; converging aircraft of the same category - the one on the right has the right of way; head-on - both give way to the right; overtaking - the overtaken aircraft has the right of way. Landing traffic has priority over taxiing aircraft.
Wake turbulence and separation
Wake vortices sink and drift with the wind; they are strongest when the generating aircraft is heavy, clean, and slow. Land and take off before the heavier aircraft's touchdown point, remain above its flight path, and wait about 3 minutes behind a heavy or super on the same runway. Question trap: you are told to "maintain visual separation" from a heavy ahead - that does not authorize ignoring wake turbulence avoidance.
Seaplane bases
On the water, keep clear of vessels, swimmers, and docks; converging vessels follow nautical give-way rules, and glassy water hides both the surface and depth cues, so use a controlled descent attitude and a known reference rather than a flare. Water rudders come up before takeoff and go down before taxiing, and step-taxi only where the area is known clear.
Rule of thumb
Wind from the left in a left pattern means the base leg requires a wider, earlier turn; drift correction is always toward the wind.