The Advanced Flight Review Playbook — Canadian RPAS Flight Review Preparation

Written from the reviewer's chair.

Most people walking into an Advanced flight review can fly. That is not what the day is about. The review is a conversation with a flight attached, and most of what goes wrong goes wrong on the ground, before the aircraft has left the case.

This is a 64-page preparation guide to the Canadian Advanced RPAS flight review, written by a Transport Canada-recognized flight reviewer — someone who sits on the other side of the clipboard. It prepares you for a review conducted by any reviewer, anywhere in Canada.

WHAT'S INSIDE

— All nine exercises in Standard 921.02, one at a time: what you'll be asked to do, what is actually being assessed, what weak and strong performances look like, and what gets recorded on the form afterwards.

— The pre-review document check. The highest-value section in the book and the cheapest to act on, built as a printable checklist you work through the week before.

— The site survey in depth: all eight statutory factors of CARs 901.27, and how to talk through them out loud.

— Six emergency scenarios, and why answering "I'd land it" sinks otherwise-strong candidates.

— Ten specific ways candidates come unstuck, each with the fix.

— Three checklists: the week before, the night before, the morning of.

— What happens afterwards: the debrief, re-booking if it doesn't go your way, and the twelve-month deadline on your certificate application that nobody mentions.

ADVANCED ONLY

The Level 1 Complex certificate has a separate flight review, assessed against a different list of exercises. It is named in this book only to mark the boundary, so you don't spend preparation time on an exercise you will never be asked to perform.

Current to the Canadian Aviation Regulations as amended by SOR/2025-70. Structured to Standard 921.02 and TP 15395, Fourth Edition, March 2025. All citations, standards and Transport Canada fees verified against primary sources on 14 August 2026.

This is preparation material. It is not a flight review, not ground school, and not a Transport Canada publication. It confers no advantage with, and imposes no obligation on, any flight reviewer including its author. No outcome is promised or implied — the assessment on the day belongs to the reviewer conducting it.

Try it first: the free Flight Review Day checklist — three checklists, eight pages, no email required — is at dronesview.ca/Flight-Review-Day-Checklist.pdf

PDF. Licensed for personal use.