A2 CofC common mistakes
A2 CofC · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Recalling a single separation figure and applying it to every question - e.g. answering '50 m' for an A3 flight, or '150 m' for an A2 flight, or saying a C1 drone in A1 may be flown over crowds.
The 50 m / 150 m / 'never over crowds' rules are learned separately and then blur under time pressure; candidates answer from the number that comes to mind first rather than first identifying the subcategory and drone class stated in the stem.
What to do instead
Before answering any separation question, write down the subcategory and class named in the stem, then apply a memorised grid: A1 = over uninvolved people allowed but never over crowds/assemblies; A2 = never over uninvolved people, minimum 50 m horizontal, low-speed mode selected; A3 = no uninvolved people, at least 150 m from the boundary of residential, commercial, industrial or recreational areas. Drill by covering the answer and reciting the grid from memory twice daily for a week.
Conflating the UAS operator with the remote pilot - e.g. stating that the remote pilot must register as an operator, or that the operator must personally hold the A2 Certificate of Competency and be the person at the controls.
In everyday speech one person often does both jobs, so the two legal roles feel like synonyms; exam questions deliberately split them to test whether the candidate knows the regulation assigns duties to distinct entities.
What to do instead
Learn the split explicitly: the operator is the legal person responsible for the flight(s), registers with the authority and receives the operator registration number, and is responsible for the overall operation; the remote pilot is the person actually manipulating the controls and must hold the competency required for the subcategory flown. Practice by re-labelling every 'who must…' question into operator or pilot before choosing an answer.
Treating a clear airspace app or the absence of a NOTAM as permission to fly, and using 'ATZ', 'CTR', 'FRZ', 'prohibited' and 'restricted' interchangeably as if all were 'no-go' or all were 'just notify someone'.
Consumer apps present airspace as a simple colour, which trains candidates to think in green/red rather than in terms of what type of zone it is, who controls it and what authorisation (if any) is obtainable.
What to do instead
Learn the categories and the authoriser for each: notified prohibited and restricted areas (no entry / entry only on stated terms), aerodrome traffic zones and control zones where ATC clearance or permission is required, and flight restriction zones around protected aerodromes where entry is an offence without permission. For each, state in one sentence who can authorise entry and whether authorisation exists at all; never answer 'check the app' as the fix.
Using height above mean sea level and height above ground level interchangeably, and treating 120 m as the height to fly at rather than the maximum permitted.
Drone telemetry usually shows height above the take-off point, which feels like altitude above the ground but is neither AGL over rising terrain nor AMSL; candidates then apply the limit from the wrong datum.
What to do instead
State the datum out loud for every altitude question: the limit is expressed as height above the surface (AGL) under the aircraft, measured from the nearest point of the earth's surface, not from the launch point and not above sea level. Confirm terrain and obstacle clearance on a map during planning, and treat 120 m as a ceiling to stay below, not a target height.
Answering see-and-avoid questions by reference to the live video feed, telemetry, or the fact that 'the app showed no traffic', instead of describing the remote pilot's own eyes and an effective scan.
The screen is the most engaging thing in the operation, so candidates mentally substitute the camera for lookout; questions that describe a manned aircraft conflict are then answered with 'the drone has right of way' or 'the camera would have shown it'.
What to do instead
Memorise the principle that detect-and-avoid for manned aircraft rests on the remote pilot maintaining direct, unaided visual contact with the aircraft (spectacles allowed, no binoculars or FPV-only view) and giving way to all manned aircraft. Rehearse the scan pattern - horizon sweep, then instrument cross-check - and treat any question mentioning an approaching manned aircraft as a give-way answer by default.
Answering human-performance scenarios with a personal opinion ('I'd just stay calm', 'fatigue only matters on long flights') instead of identifying the named phenomenon the scenario is illustrating, such as complacency, plan continuation, attentional tunnelling or expectancy.
Human factors content feels like common sense, so candidates skip learning the vocabulary and then cannot recognise the textbook cue words embedded in the scenario.
What to do instead
Build a one-page glossary linking each concept to a cue phrase and a countermeasure (e.g. 'kept going because the flight was nearly finished' = plan continuation; fix = pre-briefed abort criteria and a deliberate go/no-go point). When practising, underline the cue phrase in the stem before looking at the options, and choose the option that names the concept and its mitigation rather than a vague reassurance.
Leaving return-to-home height at the factory default or treating RTH as a fully automatic safe outcome, without checking it against obstacles and the 120 m ceiling and without knowing what the aircraft does on loss of command-and-control link.
Manufacturers market RTH as a safety feature, so candidates assume it always ends well; in practice the set RTH altitude may be above the legal limit or below nearby obstacles, and behaviour on link loss depends on the programmed failsafe.
What to do instead
Before flight, set the RTH height deliberately to clear the tallest obstacle on the return path while remaining within the height limit, and record the failsafe action (hover, land, or RTH) for loss of link. Learn a short abnormal-procedure script - link loss, loss of GNSS, fly-away, battery critical - with the pilot's action for each, and answer emergency questions from that script rather than from assumption.
Planning the flight around the manufacturer's quoted maximum flight time, with no allowance for wind, payload, low temperature or battery age, and no defined point at which the flight is abandoned.
Quoted endurance comes from a best-case bench test; candidates treat it as a specification of what will happen rather than an upper bound, and forget that a headwind on the return leg can double the energy needed to get home.
What to do instead
Plan on a usable endurance well below the quoted figure - reserve at least a quarter to a third of the battery for contingencies and landing - and compute the return leg against the wind, not the outbound leg. Set a hard battery threshold for turning back before launch, and in the exam choose the option that plans a reserve rather than the one that trusts the spec sheet.
Assuming privacy and data protection law only bites when flying commercially, when images are published, or when footage is kept - and concluding that a private recreational flight over a neighbour's garden raises no issue.
Candidates associate regulation with business use and with uploaded content, so recreational flight feels unregulated; the distinction between processing data and publishing it is rarely understood.
What to do instead
Learn that privacy obligations attach to the act of capturing personal data, not to the purpose of the flight or whether the footage is later shared, and that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in private spaces and gardens. Apply a short test to any scenario: am I recording identifiable people, do they have a reasonable expectation of privacy here, and can I minimise the data collected? Answer with the minimisation option.
Treating insurance as something that is either automatically in place or purely optional, and never checking whether a policy actually covers the planned activity, the aircraft's mass and third-party liability.
Insurance is a commercial product rather than a flight technique, so it is skipped during study; candidates also confuse the operator registration and competency requirements - which are enforced at the point of flight - with insurance, which is not checked by the aircraft before take-off.
What to do instead
Learn that the operator must hold appropriate third-party liability cover for the operation, that leisure policies frequently exclude commercial or paid work, and that the cover limit and named aircraft matter. For any insurance or security question, check three things explicitly: is the activity covered, is the mass within the policy terms, and what third-party liability limit applies. Treat the security of the command-and-control link and keeping software and firmware current as part of the same pre-flight checklist.