Night Operations Under Part 107: What Changed

For years, flying a small UAS after dark meant applying for a waiver and waiting on the FAA. That's no longer true, and the exam knows it changed recently enough that candidates studying from an old source, or a friend's outdated advice, still get this wrong with real confidence.

What two conditions replaced the night waiver?

14 CFR §107.29 permits night operations directly, no waiver required, once two things are true: the remote pilot in command has completed an initial knowledge test or recurrent training under §107.65 after April 6, 2021 (the versions that cover night operations), and the aircraft has lighted anti-collision lighting visible for at least three statute miles with a flash rate sufficient to avoid a collision. Both conditions have to be met at the same time. A pilot with current training flying an aircraft with a dim or dead anti-collision light isn't legal at night, and the reverse is equally true.

Flowchart: flying at night without a waiver needs current night training and anti-collision lights visible 3 statute miles

How does civil twilight fit in?

Civil twilight sits between daylight and full night, and it gets its own paragraph in the rule instead of being folded into either category. Under §107.29(b) and (c), civil twilight is the 30 minutes before official sunrise and the 30 minutes after official sunset (Alaska has its own definition). During civil twilight the aircraft needs the same lighted anti-collision lighting, but the training condition in paragraph (a) is written for night, not for twilight. Confusing "it's not fully dark yet" with "no lighting rule applies yet" is one of the more common ways this topic trips people up. The civil twilight post explains why that fixed 30-minute window can differ from the twilight a sky app shows.

Can you dim the anti-collision light?

Yes, with a hard limit. §107.29 lets the remote pilot in command reduce the intensity of the lighting, but not extinguish it, if operating conditions make that the safer choice, for example when a very bright strobe is hurting your night vision. Dimmed is legal. Off is not.

What changes in a night preflight?

The preflight duty in §107.15 and §107.49 is the same at night, but doing it is harder, because darkness hides damage. Check that the anti-collision light works and flashes before launch, and inspect the airframe, propellers and wiring with a flashlight, looking for cracks, delamination and battery leakage. White light destroys dark adaptation, which can take up to about half an hour to build, so a red-filtered light is the better tool.

Weight matters too. Category 1 flights over people require an aircraft that weighs 0.55 pounds (250 grams) or less throughout the operation, including everything attached. A standalone strobe adds mass and can push a light aircraft over that line, which ends its Category 1 eligibility. The Operations Over People post covers the categories.

What this doesn't remove

Nothing about the night-operations update touches VLOS, registration, or any of the other baseline Part 107 requirements. A pilot flying at night still has to maintain visual line of sight with the naked eye, correctable lenses, or vision-correcting devices, not through a device like binoculars, and still needs the aircraft registered and marked exactly as it would during the day. Night operations changed one specific gate, not the whole rulebook around it.

The version the exam tests

Exam questions on this topic tend to present a scenario, an aircraft with a specific anti-collision light spec, a pilot with or without recent training, sometimes a civil-twilight timestamp, and ask whether the flight is legal. The fastest way through those questions is checking both conditions independently rather than assuming one implies the other: does the pilot have the required recent training, and does the aircraft's lighting meet the visibility and flash-rate requirement. If either answer is no, the flight isn't legal regardless of how obvious the rest of the scenario seems.

Night flying touches several other rules: VLOS and visual observers for what still applies in the dark, waivers for what can still be waived, and physiological effects for night vision and illusions.

Study the full citation and the surrounding operating-rules context in the handbook's night operations section.