Can a Drone Drop Things Under Part 107?

Part 107 has no blanket rule against dropping things from a drone. It prohibits dropping an object in a manner that creates an undue hazard to persons or property, and it separately prohibits a small drone from carrying hazardous material at all. They answer different questions, and mixing them up leads to wrong answers in both directions.

What does the dropping rule actually say?

14 CFR §107.23 has two parts. No one may operate a small UAS in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another. And no one may allow an object to be dropped from a small unmanned aircraft in a manner that creates an undue hazard to persons or property.

The second part is about the manner of the drop. It does not say "no object may be dropped."

How is carrying hazardous material different?

§107.36 is absolute: a small unmanned aircraft may not carry hazardous material, as defined in 49 CFR 171.8. There is no "safely" qualifier, and §107.36 is not on the §107.205 waiver list. If the item is hazardous material, it may not be on the aircraft, whether or not you plan to drop it.

Weapons go a step further than hazardous material: a federal statute bans flying a drone equipped with a dangerous weapon at all without FAA authorization, as the post on weapons and drones explains.

What do you have to check before carrying anything?

§107.49(e) requires the remote pilot in command, before flight, to make sure any object attached or carried is secure and does not adversely affect flight characteristics or controllability. A payload changes weight and balance, so performance changes too. The density altitude post covers what reduces performance.

Does a payload change any other rule?

No. Everything else still applies. You still need to make sure a loss of control causes no undue hazard (§107.19(c)), the rules on flying over people still apply, and so do visual line of sight and airspace authorization. A drop over people is the clearest example of where §107.23(b) and the Operations Over People rules meet.

What about delivery and crop spraying?

Two narrow points we can state. First, §107.205 says waivers of the moving-vehicle rule (§107.25) and the visual line of sight rule (§107.31) will not be issued to allow carriage of property of another for compensation or hire. Second, FAA guidance says dispensing substances from aircraft for agriculture, drones included, falls under Part 137, so spraying is not a Part 107-only question. Beyond that, this post does not cover delivery businesses.

A worked example

You drop a small sealed marker bag onto an empty field you control, with nobody nearby. Under §107.23(b) the question is whether that manner creates an undue hazard to persons or property, and here it is hard to see one. Now replace the bag with a can of spray paint, which is likely to be hazardous material. Under §107.36 the flight is not allowed even if you never drop it.

What this means for the exam

Read the scenario for two separate things: what the object is, and how and where it is dropped. Hazardous material means no, regardless of how carefully it is carried. A non-hazardous object means the answer turns on undue hazard to people or property.

The handbook covers both under UA.I.B.K6 and UA.I.B.K13.

Payload weight counts toward the 55-pound limit, and the other short operating rules are in Part 107 rules people forget.