Two things changed. On September 29, 2025 the FAA replaced the UAG test blueprint — the mix of subjects the 60 questions are drawn from. Then, starting October 27, 2026, the UAG and Instrument Rating Airplane (IRA) exams add questions with images embedded in the question itself, drawn from charts that are not in the printed Testing Supplement. The supplement is not going away — the FAA says a date for withdrawing it "has not yet been set" — but you can no longer count on having seen every figure before test day. Here's what changed, why it matters, and how to study for it.
For years, every Part 107 test taker has done the same thing: study the FAA's free Airman Knowledge Testing Supplement (FAA-CT-8080-2H) until you can recognize every figure in it from a mile away. On exam day, you'd open the same printed supplement at the testing center, find the figure the question referenced, and answer.
That workflow stops being enough in October 2026.
Per the FAA's Airman Testing Community Advisory (June 2026 edition), the change does three things:
October 27 is the date for the UAG (Unmanned Aircraft General — Small) test, which is Part 107, and the IRA (Instrument Rating Airplane) test. The FAA is rolling embedded images across other knowledge tests too — Private, Commercial, Sport, Instrument, the AMT tests, Parachute Rigger, and Flight Engineer.
The supplement is not being withdrawn. This is the part most write-ups get wrong. The same FAA advisory states plainly: "The date for removing testing supplements from test centers has not yet been set." You will still have the supplement in front of you. What changed is that it is no longer a complete preview of what you'll be shown.
The October 2026 image change got the attention. The bigger one landed a year earlier and was announced in a PDF almost nobody outside the training industry reads.
In its August 2025 Airman Testing Community Advisory, the FAA announced that effective September 29, 2025, the UAG knowledge test moved to an updated blueprint, and that the blueprint published in FAA-S-ACS-10B — the Remote Pilot ACS that nearly every study course is built around — "will become obsolete." The FAA directed applicants to a UAG Applicant Information Bulletin "until the UAS ACS can be updated."
The FAA is explicit that the topics did not change: "The UAG test topics and subject matter did not change as a result of the assessment process." What changed is the blueprint — how the 60 questions are distributed across those topics.
Where this stands as of September 2026. The ACS posted on faa.gov is still revision 10B, dated April 2021, still showing the old ranges (Regulations 15–25%, Airspace 15–25%, Weather 11–16%, Loading & Performance 7–11%, Operations 35–45%). Several trainers have reported that the new blueprint weights Regulations far more heavily and Weather far less. We have not been able to verify those specific percentages against an FAA document, and we are not going to publish numbers we can't source. If you have the current Applicant Information Bulletin, send it to us and we will update this post and credit you.
The practical takeaway does not depend on the exact numbers: if your study plan spends equal time on all twelve knowledge areas, it does not match the test. Regulations and airspace have always carried more weight than their share of study time, and the 2025 revision moved further in that direction, not less.
The Part 107 test is already harder than most candidates expect, and a retake costs another $175. The FAA does not publish a current first-time pass rate for the UAG test, so treat any specific figure you see quoted online — including ours, previously — with suspicion. What is not in dispute: enough people fail that the retake fee is a real line item in this hobby.
The new format raises the difficulty in three ways:
Under the old system, savvy test takers would essentially memorize the Testing Supplement. If a question referenced "Figure 21," you knew exactly what you were looking at before you even opened the booklet. With novel embedded figures, raw memorization stops working. You have to actually understand how to read sectional charts, METARs, and airspace symbology.
FAA charts cover the entire National Airspace System — that's hundreds of sectional charts, dozens of TACs, thousands of approach plates. The Testing Supplement only sampled a handful. Now your prep needs to cover the underlying skill, not just the specific images.
You still get 2 hours for 60 questions. But if you're spending an extra 30 seconds per question trying to parse an unfamiliar chart, you'll run out of time on the 5–10 questions you'd have aced under the old format.
Key insight: Memorization-based study strategies that used to coast people to a 75% will now produce more failures. Skill-based study — actually learning chart symbology, METAR decoding, and airspace logic — is no longer optional.
If you're scheduled to test before October 27, 2026, your existing study materials are fine. Focus on the current Testing Supplement, memorize the figures, take your test, get your certificate.
If you're testing on or after October 27, 2026 — or you're a CFI prepping students who will test in 2027 — your study approach needs to shift. Here's what to prioritize:
Stop treating chart reading as a memorization task. Start treating it as a skill. That means:
This is the single biggest change in study strategy. Where you used to drill the same 20 supplement figures over and over, you now need volume and variety. Pull random sectional charts from the FAA's chart download page. Look at sections you've never studied. Ask yourself: "If a question asked me about the airspace at 5,000 feet over this airport, what class is it?" Practice until you can answer that for any airport on any chart.
This is where having current study material matters. Tools that only quiz you on the old Testing Supplement figures will leave you unprepared. Look for a tool that:
Most Part 107 study courses front-load airspace and chart reading because those are the hardest topics. The new exam format makes them even more important — but don't neglect the other 60% of the test. Weather, regulations (FAR Part 107 itself), aeronautical decision-making, crew resource management, and aircraft loading/performance are all still on there. A 70% passing score means you can miss up to 18 questions, but you can't afford to give away easy points in the topics you didn't study.
Worth noting what stays the same:
A simple check: open whatever Part 107 prep tool you're using and look at the chart-reading questions.
The October 2026 changes don't reinvent the Part 107 test, but they make it harder to fake. If you're testing in late 2026 or 2027, your prep needs to be skill-based, not figure-based.
If you've been putting off scheduling your Part 107, you have two options:
Either way, get your prep volume up. The single biggest predictor of passing the Part 107 — under any format — is still the number of practice questions you've done. Aim for 500+ before walking into the testing center.
GetDroneReady includes 420+ rotating questions with chart-reading drills built around real FAA sectional charts — designed for the new embedded-figure format. $47 one-time. Free to start.
Start Studying Free →Last verified against FAA sources September 5, 2026. FAA guidance changes; check faa.gov before relying on any date here.