Part 107 Flight Logs: Required Versus Recommended Records

Part 107 does not contain a universal rule requiring every ordinary small-drone flight to be entered in a pilot logbook. It also does not generally require a maintenance log for every aircraft operated in routine Category 1 through 3 operations. That does not mean a professional operator has nothing to document.

The records that are legally required depend on the operation. Pilot credentials, aircraft registration, training recency, FAA safety-event reports, Category 4 maintenance, waiver conditions, and NTSB record-preservation rules each create different duties. Contracts, insurers, employers, state rules, and regulated industries can add more.

The practical answer is to separate records into three groups:

1. Documents and reports required for the operation.
2. Records required only when a specific authority or event applies.
3. Operational records kept as professional safety evidence.

Confusing those groups leads to two opposite errors. An operator may claim the FAA requires records that are only recommended, or may hear "no logbook rule" and fail to preserve evidence needed for a waiver, claim, investigation, client, or sound maintenance decision.

What Part 107 generally requires

Certificate and identification must be physically accessible

Under 14 CFR §107.7, a person exercising Remote Pilot Certificate privileges must have the certificate and identification in physical possession and readily accessible. The person must present them when requested by the FAA, an authorized NTSB representative, a federal, state, or local law-enforcement officer, or an authorized TSA representative.

Section 107.7 also requires a person to make available to the FAA any document, record, or report that another applicable regulation requires the person to keep. It does not independently create a universal flight-log requirement.

Sections 107.13 and 91.203(a)(2) require the registration certificate to be carried with the aircraft. The FAA's current Getting Started guidance also tells the remote pilot to carry applicable authorizations or waivers. A program record system should make those documents available at the point of operation, including when the primary office is closed or connectivity is poor.

Aeronautical-knowledge recency must be supportable

A Remote Pilot Certificate has no routine expiration date, but §107.65 prohibits a person from exercising remote-PIC privileges without qualifying knowledge testing or training within the preceding 24 calendar months.

The regulation defines the qualification. FAA guidance says a pilot who completes the online course must keep the completion certificate and be able to show it to the FAA on request. Keep the applicable course certificate or test record available. Recording the completion date and next due month in a training register is a separate professional practice. A team should not rely on memory or the expiration of the plastic certificate, because the card does not display the operational currency deadline.

See How to Get a Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate for the initial and recurrent paths.

Qualifying safety events must be reported to the FAA

Section 107.9 is titled "Safety event reporting." The remote PIC must report a qualifying operation to the FAA no later than 10 calendar days after it occurs. The triggers are:

• Serious injury to any person or any loss of consciousness.
• Damage to property other than the small unmanned aircraft when repair cost exceeds $500.
• Total loss of other property when its fair-market value exceeds $500.

The exact threshold matters. The regulation exempts property damage when repair cost does not exceed $500, or when the fair-market value does not exceed $500 after a total loss. A summary that says "at least $500" changes the boundary at exactly $500.

FAA guidance allows submission through FAA DroneZone or the nearest Flight Standards District Office. Section 107.9 states no retention period after submission. As a professional practice, keep the report, confirmation, supporting photographs, estimates, witness information, source flight data, and internal review together under a controlled incident identifier unless an independent preservation or retention duty applies.

Do not edit or overwrite original evidence to make a cleaner package. Preserve the source data, then make working copies for analysis.

Section 107.21 creates a different conditional report. If a remote PIC deviates from a Part 107 rule during an in-flight emergency, the pilot must send a written report only when the FAA Administrator requests it. That section states no retention period.

What Part 107 does not generally require

For an ordinary Part 107 operation using a Category 1, 2, or 3 aircraft without a waiver condition that says otherwise, the federal rule does not generally prescribe:

• A log entry for every takeoff and landing.
• A minimum number of flight hours for the remote PIC.
• A standard FAA flight-log form.
• A universal retention period for ordinary mission logs.
• A maintenance entry after every inspection, propeller change, battery cycle, or firmware update.
• A record of every visual observer assignment.

Sections 107.15 and 107.49 still require the aircraft to be in a condition for safe operation and require the remote PIC to complete specified preflight assessment and action. Those are operating duties. The regulations do not convert every duty into a universal written-record requirement.

FAA Advisory Circular 107-2A recommends maintenance and inspection recordkeeping because it helps establish schedules, track component service life, identify failures, and support the decision that an aircraft is safe to launch. An advisory circular explains an acceptable approach and useful practice. It is not, by itself, a regulation.

Law versus practice: A written checklist or log may be the best way to demonstrate that a professional process occurred, even when the regulation requires the action rather than a written record.

When additional records become mandatory

Category 4 operations

Category 4 applies to eligible small unmanned aircraft with an airworthiness certificate and operating limitations that permit operation over people. Section 107.140(c) establishes explicit maintenance and record duties for the owner, or for an operator who has agreed to assume them.

Records of maintenance, preventive maintenance, and alterations must include:

• A description of the work performed.
• The date the work was completed.
• The name of the person who performed the work.

The responsible party must also maintain records showing:

• The status of life-limited parts.
• The aircraft's inspection status.
• The status and method of compliance for applicable airworthiness directives, including the directive number and revision date.
• The time and date of the next required action when a directive is recurring.

Maintenance, preventive-maintenance, and alteration records must be retained for one year after completion or until the work is repeated or superseded. Life-limited-part, airworthiness-directive, and inspection-status records must be retained and transferred with the aircraft when ownership changes.

Those Category 4 requirements should not be described as universal obligations for every consumer or enterprise drone under Part 107.

Waivers, exemptions, authorizations, and COAs

An FAA waiver can contain conditions and limitations beyond the baseline rule. Under §107.200(d), a person conducting an operation under a certificate of waiver must comply with every condition and limitation in that certificate.

The controlling document is the approval issued to that operator. A generic article cannot replace it. Make the complete approval accessible to the remote PIC. Unless the approval specifies its own record fields, recording its number, revision or effective date, applicable aircraft and pilots, operating area, conditions, and expiration is a professional practice rather than a generic requirement created by §107.200(d).

If a waiver and an airspace authorization are both needed, keep both accessible. They answer different legal questions. Apply each document's own retention terms; Part 107 does not supply one generic period for every approval.

Contracts, insurers, employers, and regulated work

A client contract may require proof of flight, chain of custody, deliverable acceptance, pilot qualifications, or data deletion. An insurer may require notice, documentation, or preservation after a loss. An employer's safety-management system can require inspections, risk assessments, training, and corrective actions.

Mapping, pesticide application, public-safety, utility, and infrastructure work can be governed by authorities beyond Part 107. State professional-licensing laws and agency program rules may affect what must be recorded.

Label these accurately. A contractual or company requirement is not automatically an FAA requirement, but it is still binding on the organization that accepted it.

FAA and NTSB reporting are separate

An event can involve FAA reporting, NTSB notification, both, or neither. Do not assume that a DroneZone report completes the NTSB obligation.

49 CFR Part 830 defines an unmanned-aircraft accident and lists events requiring immediate NTSB notification. For an unmanned aircraft, an accident includes an occurrence in which a person suffers death or serious injury, or an aircraft holding an airworthiness certificate sustains substantial damage.

Part 830 also includes serious incidents such as an in-flight collision. The facts and aircraft status determine the reporting path.

When notification is required, §830.10(a) makes the operator responsible for preserving, to the extent possible, the wreckage and existing records relating to operation and maintenance until the NTSB takes custody or grants a release. Separately, §830.10(d) requires an operator whose aircraft is involved in an accident or incident to retain all records, reports, internal documents, and memoranda dealing with the event until the Board authorizes otherwise.

That preservation duty is a reason to design records before an incident. Flight data scattered among a controller, phone, cloud account, removable card, and employee laptop can be lost during routine synchronization or device replacement.

NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System provides a separate voluntary, confidential channel for hazards, close calls, procedural errors, lost links, and similar safety information. An ASRS report does not replace an FAA safety-event report or an NTSB accident report. NASA expressly directs users not to submit accidents or criminal activity through the ASRS form.

What a professional flight record should contain

A useful operational log should let a qualified reviewer reconstruct the authorization, preparation, conduct, outcome, and follow-up of a mission without guessing.

Not every mission needs a long narrative. Use structured fields for routine facts and reserve narrative for decisions, deviations, and anomalies. The record should reveal who made the go/no-go decision and what information supported it.

For night missions, include light identity or configuration, its preflight function check, the pilot's §107.29 knowledge qualification and §107.65 recency, and night-specific hazards. The operational requirements are explained in Flying Drones at Night Under Part 107.

Connect maintenance records to flight decisions

A flight log and maintenance log should reference one another without overwriting history.

When a pilot finds damage or abnormal behavior:

1. Record the observation against the mission and aircraft.
2. Change the aircraft status to grounded or restricted when continued operation is not supportable.
3. Create a maintenance action that references the original discrepancy.
4. Record the work, parts, date, person, evidence, and applicable instructions.
5. Require an authorized return-to-service decision under the program's procedure.
6. Preserve the original discrepancy and link the closure rather than deleting the issue.

Track batteries as individual assets when their identity can affect a launch decision. Useful fields include identifier, aircraft compatibility, acquisition date, cycle count if reliably available, observed damage or swelling, abnormal temperature behavior, storage status, quarantine, and retirement. Follow the aircraft and battery manufacturer's current instructions.

Firmware and configuration changes deserve similar control. Record the prior version, new version, date, affected aircraft and controller, reason, validation flight, and rollback or grounding decision. Automatic updates should not erase knowledge of the configuration used on a completed mission.

Set retention from the applicable obligation

There is no responsible universal answer such as "keep every drone log for three years." Build a retention schedule from the records involved.

For each record class, identify:

• The regulation, waiver, authorization, contract, insurer, or policy that creates it.
• The event that starts the retention period.
• The minimum period and whether another requirement is longer.
• The record owner and approved storage location.
• Access controls for personal, client, location, or security-sensitive information.
• The events that suspend routine deletion, such as an incident, claim, audit, investigation, dispute, or legal hold.
• The approved deletion method and evidence of deletion.

Never allow an automated retention rule to delete records connected to an open event. If Category 4 applies, use its exact retention and aircraft-transfer requirements. If the waiver says records must be available throughout its term or for a stated period, configure the system to that condition.

Choosing a record system

A paper form, controlled spreadsheet, or fleet platform can work. The right question is whether the system supports the obligation and the operation, not whether it has the longest feature list.

Evaluate whether it can:

• Work at the field location when connectivity is unavailable.
• Preserve original entries and show later corrections.
• Control user permissions and departures from the organization.
• Link pilot, aircraft, battery, authorization, mission, anomaly, and maintenance records.
• Export records in a durable, readable format without a continuing subscription.
• Preserve timestamps, attachments, and approval history.
• Back up data and test restoration.
• Apply retention holds and controlled deletion.
• Avoid unnecessary collection of personal or client-sensitive data.

Do not assume a manufacturer's automatic flight-history screen is a complete compliance record. It may omit crew, authorization, weather, inspection, purpose, or corrective action. Its retention and export behavior can also change.

The operational standard to aim for

The legal minimum and professional record are not enemies. Accurate labeling keeps them clear.

A strong program can say, "This report is required by §107.9," "this maintenance record is required for Category 4," or "this mission log is our documented safety practice." Each statement tells the reader why the record exists and which rule or policy controls it.

The goal is not paperwork for its own sake. The goal is retrievable evidence that the pilot was current, the aircraft was supportably safe, the operation was authorized, hazards were considered, anomalies were handled, and lessons reached the next mission.