Search this question and you’ll still find pages telling you to apply for a Daylight Operations waiver and wait weeks for approval. That advice is out of date. The rule changed, and night flying under Part 107 is now something you can do on your own authority — provided you meet two specific conditions.

The short version: no waiver is required to fly at night. What 14 CFR 107.29 requires instead is updated training and anti-collision lighting visible for at least 3 statute miles. Meet both and you can legally launch after dark.

14 CFR 107.29(a)(1) and (a)(2): the two conditions, precisely

Condition 1 — training. Under 107.29(a)(1), the remote PIC must have completed either the updated initial knowledge test or the recurrent training that covers night operation subjects. Note what this is not: there’s no requirement to log night flights, and no requirement to fly with a visual observer to build experience. The requirement is the training content, not logged hours.

Condition 2 — lighting. Under 107.29(a)(2), the aircraft must have lighted anti-collision lighting visible for at least 3 statute miles, with a flash rate sufficient to avoid a collision. Not 1 mile, not 5 — three. Most stock navigation lights that ship on consumer drones don’t meet this; a dedicated strobe usually does.

That’s the whole gate. Both conditions, no paperwork, no waiting.

14 CFR 107.29(b): civil twilight works the same way

Civil twilight — the 30 minutes before official sunrise and after official sunset (Alaska differs) — falls under 107.29(b), and it carries the same anti-collision lighting requirement. A flight planned for 20 minutes after sunset is permitted with the 3-SM lighting. It isn’t prohibited until some later hour, and it isn’t restricted to Class G airspace.

One practical detail people get wrong: you determine official sunset and the end of civil twilight from a published astronomical source for that location and date — the Air Almanac or an aviation app. Not from when the sun disappears behind a ridge or when the streetlights come on. Terrain can hide the sun well before official sunset, and the rule pivots on the published time.

Night rules stack: 107.29 doesn’t cover 107.41 or 107.39

This is the conceptual error that costs people on the exam and in planning. Satisfying 107.29 satisfies only the night requirement. Every other rule still applies independently.

A night shoot in Class D airspace, hovering over crew members who are directly participating, requires all three at once:

• 107.41 — ATC authorization for the Class D airspace (LAANC handles this),
• 107.29 — the night training and 3-SM anti-collision lighting,
• 107.39 — permitted here only because those people are directly participating in the operation.

There’s no single umbrella waiver that covers the whole operation, and no rule that cancels another. If you hold a LAANC authorization to 200 feet in Class D and need to film at civil twilight without a night waiver, you’re fine — the LAANC authorization handles 107.41, and the lighting plus training handles 107.29. The two combine directly.

Worth knowing for the exam: night operations can be waived under 107.205 if you need relief from the conditions. What cannot be waived is the hazardous-materials prohibition in 107.36 — that’s not on the waivable list at all.

When the light fails mid-flight: 107.29 and 107.15(b)

Twenty minutes after sunset, your anti-collision light dies. The aircraft was legal at takeoff, so is it still legal?

No. Land as soon as practicable. The civil-twilight allowance depends on functioning 3-SM lighting; once it fails, continuing violates 107.29, and 107.15(b) directs the remote PIC to discontinue when the aircraft can no longer be operated safely within the rules. Climbing higher to stay visible doesn’t fix it, and “it worked at takeoff” isn’t a defense.

The part most guides skip: your eyes

The regulation is the easy half. The harder half is that human vision degrades badly in darkness, and the FAA study guide material on this shows up on the exam.

Dark adaptation takes about 30 minutes to build and seconds to destroy. Glance at a bright phone screen to check settings and you may be unable to see your aircraft’s light for several seconds afterward. Use dim or red-filtered lighting at the control station, and shield your eyes from headlights and floodlights.

Look slightly off-center. The eye’s rod cells — the ones that work in dim light — sit away from the central fovea. Staring directly at where you think the aircraft is will miss it; scanning slightly to the side detects it.

A stared-at light appears to drift. Fix your gaze on a single anti-collision light against a black sky and it will seem to wander even while the aircraft hovers. This is autokinesis, an illusion in the observer, not aircraft movement or GPS drift. Counter it by scanning deliberately and referencing the light against buildings or stars.

Depth perception fails over dark terrain. Featureless ground removes the cues you use to judge height and distance. Cross-check your telemetry readouts and position the aircraft against lighted references — don’t estimate from apparent size, and don’t descend lower hoping it improves.

One planning habit worth adopting: survey an unfamiliar night site in daylight first. Wires, guy lines, and thin poles are nearly invisible after dark, and optical obstacle-avoidance systems degrade sharply in darkness. A daylight walk-through maps those hazards into your plan and is exactly the kind of assessment 107.49 expects.

Practice questions on this

Want to practice the whole regulations section this way? The free 90-question Regulations drill runs in your browser, and every answer names the section it comes from — the same way this article does.

Read next: What 14 CFR 107.49 Actually Requires (It’s Four Checks, Not a Checklist) • 14 CFR 107.41: The Two Airspace Authorization Traps That Catch Part 107 Pilots

← Back to the Part 107 Study Hub for the free drill and more plain-English guides to the regulations.

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Study aid only. Not flight instruction and not legal advice. Regulations change — always verify against current FAA publications before you fly. These are original questions written to the ACS standards from public FAA material, not FAA exam questions.