Aeronautical Decision Making for Drone Pilots: IMSAFE, PAVE and DECIDE (2026)

Aeronautical decision making and crew resource management are two of the thirteen knowledge areas in 14 CFR 107.73, and between them they decide whether a legal flight stays a safe one. The exam rarely asks for a definition. It hands you a booked client, a battery at 40 percent and a wind report you skimmed, then asks what the pilot should do. The tools below come from the FAA Risk Management Handbook (FAA-H-8083-2A) and AC 107-2A.

Where ADM and CRM Sit in Part 107

Section 107.73(f) requires crew resource management and 107.73(j) requires aeronautical decision-making and judgment, in a list of thirteen areas tested by 60 questions in 120 minutes with a 70 percent pass mark. ADM questions are written as scenarios, so the right answer usually removes risk before launch rather than rescuing the flight. AC 107-2A section 5.3 treats CRM as a component of ADM: ADM is a systematic approach to reaching the best course of action, and CRM is making effective use of every human, hardware and information resource.

The Five Hazardous Attitudes and Their Antidotes

The FAA names five attitudes that push a pilot toward a poor decision, each with a thought that counters it. Exam options quote them almost word for word.

Attitude	What it sounds like	Antidote
Anti-authority	Don't tell me.	Follow the rules. They help prevent accidents.
Impulsivity	Do it quickly.	Not so fast. Think first.
Invulnerability	It won't happen to me.	It could happen to me.
Macho	I can do it.	Taking chances is foolish.
Resignation	What's the use?	I'm not helpless. I can make a difference.

On a drone job they arrive quietly. Macho accepts a gusty afternoon because the shoot is booked, and invulnerability skips the battery log because the aircraft has never failed.

IMSAFE: Personal Readiness

IMSAFE covers the pilot side of PAVE: Illness, Medication, Stress, Alcohol, Fatigue and Emotion. The handbooks differ on the letter E, since some FAA material uses Eating. Section 107.17 makes the check a rule: no one may act as remote pilot in command, visual observer or direct participant knowing of a condition that would interfere with safe operation.

Section 107.27 requires compliance with sections 91.17 and 91.19: no alcohol within 8 hours, no operation under the influence, a blood alcohol concentration below 0.04 percent, and no drug affecting mental or physical capability.

PAVE: Four Buckets of Risk

PAVE organises hazard identification into the pilot, the aircraft, the environment and external pressures.

• Pilot: IMSAFE, currency under section 107.65, proficiency with this aircraft and mission.
• Aircraft: battery health and charge, propellers, firmware, gimbal, registration and Remote ID.
• Environment: weather against section 107.51, airspace and TFRs, terrain, obstacles, the people and property below.
• External pressures: the client's deadline, the promised sunset shot, the re-shoot, your own sunk cost in the job.

External pressure is the bucket pilots underestimate, and it never appears on a chart.

DECIDE and the 3P Model

DECIDE is the six-step loop for analytical decisions: Detect the change, Estimate the need to react, Choose a desired outcome, Identify actions, Do them, Evaluate the result. The 3P model compresses the same loop for use in flight: Perceive, Process, Perform, then repeat.

3P step	What the pilot does	Drone example
Perceive	Notices the change and its severity	Gusts 8 knots above forecast
Process	Weighs options against the risk	Descend, land, or continue lower
Perform	Acts, then monitors the effect	Lands, briefs the client, replans

Situational Awareness, Distraction and Task Saturation

The handbook defines situational awareness as perception of the variables in the environment, comprehension of their meaning, and projection of their status into the near future. In practice it is knowing where the aircraft is, where the traffic is, what the battery has left and what comes next. Losing it arrives as task saturation, when the checklist, the phone call and the client's question land together, or as distraction, when your eyes stay on the screen long enough for the aircraft to drift behind a tree line. Section 107.31 keeps the aircraft in sight at all times, a rule about attention as much as distance. The night operations guide explains why dark adaptation makes it worse after sunset.

Single-Pilot Resource Management and the Go/No-Go Call

Single-pilot resource management is the FAA term for managing every resource available to a pilot flying alone. The handbook lists situational awareness, communication, teamwork, task allocation, decision making and risk management among its competencies. With no crew, the resources are your preflight, your written procedures and the people you can call.

Personal minimums turn go/no-go into arithmetic done in advance: a wind limit, a visibility floor above the 3 statute mile rule, a battery reserve. Never adjust a minimum to complete a specific flight.

Scoring Risk Before Launch

The FAA risk matrix crosses likelihood, from probable through occasional and remote to improbable, against severity, from catastrophic through critical and marginal to negligible. Medium risk is a go; high or serious risk is a no-go until a control lowers the entry.

A Saturday shoot in a downtown park with a 12 knot crosswind shows how it works. Collision with people below, probable likelihood and critical severity, scores high and stops the flight. Moving the launch point and adding a visual observer can pull the same hazard down to remote likelihood and marginal severity, which reads low on the matrix.

Communicating With a Visual Observer

CRM in small UAS is mostly communication. Section 107.33 requires effective communication at all times between the remote pilot in command, the person manipulating the controls and the visual observer, and the three must coordinate the airspace scan and the aircraft's position. AC 107-2A Appendix A gives the practical version: the observer holds visual contact and calls hazards, and the pilot re-briefs when conditions change.

Brief before launch in plain words: who watches the aircraft, who watches the airspace, who calls traffic, and what word means stop.

How the Exam Frames These Questions

• A client pressures the pilot to fly in marginal wind. The answer delays or declines, not lowers the altitude.
• A pilot feels unwell after a cold remedy. The answer is grounded under section 107.17.

Next Steps

Run IMSAFE and PAVE at the desk, score the matrix before you drive, and keep your minimums in the case. The Part 107 study guide covers the rest of the test, the loading and performance guide shows why a heavy aircraft narrows every margin, and the METAR and TAF guide covers the weather half of PAVE. Work through the study checklist, try a free Part 107 practice question, and compare plan options.