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One cited corpus, three certificate tracks. Pick the one you are studying for — every lesson states where its claims come from, and the tracks share their lessons rather than repeating them.
All 63 English lessons are readable from any track.The track decides what is listed and the order it is studied in, not what you are allowed to open: Advanced includes the Basic lessons, and Level 1 Complex includes most of both — a rule that applies to a Basic flight does not stop applying when you fly an Advanced one.
Basic operations
Small RPAS, visual line of sight, uncontrolled airspace, away from people and aerodromes.
Start here unless you already hold a certificate: the ground school is the same, and the Basic rules are the ones every other operation is an exception to.
Start this trackAdvanced operations
Controlled airspace and closer to people, which is what the Advanced certificate adds.
For a flight review in controlled airspace, or operations near people. It includes the Basic lessons — the Advanced rules extend them rather than replacing them.
Start this trackLevel 1 Complex operations
Beyond visual line of sight, over people, or above 400 feet — the operations that need a declaration.
For operations that need a safety assurance declaration or an RPAS operator certificate. Read the Advanced track first if you have not.
Start this trackHow this course list was decided: 63 lessons, 446 citations, 255 authoritative sections
446 citations across 255 distinct authoritative sections, with 0 unresolved. A lesson cites a median of 5 sections, at most 30 - the widest are the scope and licensing lessons.
What the citations rest on
| Source family | Citations |
|---|---|
| CAR Part IX - 901 (RPAS operations) | 174 |
| TC AIM RPA chapter (TP 14371) | 127 |
| CAR Part IX - 900 (registration, declaration) | 32 |
| Standard 922 / 923 (safety assurance) | 32 |
| CAR Part VI - 602 (operating rules) | 26 |
| CAR Part VI - 601 (airspace) | 17 |
| CAR Part IX - 903 (SFOC) | 9 |
| CAR Part 103 | 6 |
| CAR Part III - 301/302 (aerodromes and airports) | 5 |
| CAR Part 101 | 2 |
| CAR Part 102 | 1 |
| CAR Part 606 | 1 |
| TP 15263 / TP 15530 (syllabus) | 7 |
| Other Transport Canada pages | 7 |
The division of labour is fixed: the CARs state the rule, the AIM RPA chapter explains it, Standard 922/923 carries the safety-assurance obligations, and the TP documents supply the syllabus structure the lessons are mapped to.
How each lesson was chosen
- The syllabus sets the topics. TP 15263 and TP 15530 state what a Basic, Advanced and Level 1 Complex pilot must know. Those requirements expand into the concept map behind the app - 537 concepts, 901 knowledge points, 288 assessable objectives - and a lesson only exists to teach something on that map.
- The corpus decides whether a lesson may exist. Every claim carries a citation to a Transport Canada section, and every lesson is built the same way: a rule from the CARs, explained by the AIM RPA chapter, with the safety-assurance standard where it applies. No citable passage, no lesson - which is why some syllabus objectives still have no lesson rather than a guessed one.
- The question bank set the order. Lessons were written for clusters of concepts that share the same sources, so one lesson could honestly carry the questions filed under those concepts. That closed the bank's unreached list from 354 questions across 149 concepts to 3 across 2.
- Structure and wiring. Every lesson follows the same anatomy fixed by the style guide - Goal, Prerequisites, Steps, Result, Troubleshooting, Test yourself, Sources - and declares [[quiz:concept:...]] hooks naming the concepts it claims to teach.
Which certificate levels each lesson serves
| Certificate levels | Lessons |
|---|---|
| All three | 43 |
| Advanced + Level 1 Complex | 11 |
| Basic + Advanced | 7 |
| Level 1 Complex only | 2 |
What the 63 lessons cover
| Path / section | Lessons |
|---|---|
| Basic operations / Flight Rules | 18 |
| Advanced operations / Permitted Operations | 9 |
| Basic operations / Airspace | 6 |
| Basic operations / Crew and Licensing | 6 |
| Basic operations / Syllabus | 6 |
| Basic operations / Records and Registration | 5 |
| Basic operations / Payloads and Equipment | 4 |
| Basic operations / Emergencies and Incidents | 3 |
| Advanced operations / Licensing | 2 |
| Basic operations / Pre-flight and Site | 2 |
| Basic operations / Background: rules that do not apply to RPA | 1 |
| Basic operations / Human Factors | 1 |
What this does not claim
- Lessons are not coverage. The 63 lessons do not map evenly onto the 288 assessable objectives: 83 objectives have a published question, and 122 still lack a source.
- The order is still a proposal. All 93 prerequisite links are unconfirmed, and the page says so rather than presenting a reading order as settled.
- One lesson is deliberately not an RPA rule. ESCAT (CAR 602.146) sits in Part VI Subpart 2, which 602.01 excludes for remotely piloted aircraft, so it is grouped under Background.
- Selection is source-driven, not syllabus-driven. An objective the syllabus names still gets no lesson when the authoritative material is too thin - the 122-objective gap recorded in docs/53.
Do I need the Basic certificate first?
No. The three certificates are alternatives, not rungs. Section 901.54 requires one of them to fly at all, and section 901.63 accepts an advanced or a level 1 complex certificate for the advanced category — so a holder of the level 1 complex certificate may fly advanced-category operations without ever holding the advanced one.
- 1
Basic
What it takes to be issued one14 years old, the Basic Operations examination (901.55)
No — there is nothing below it
Start this track - 2
Advanced
What it takes to be issued one16 years old, the Advanced Operations examination, a flight review within 12 months (901.64)
No — the basic certificate is not a condition
Start this track - 3
Level 1 Complex
What it takes to be issued one18 years old, the advanced examination, 20 hours of ground school, the Level 1 Complex examination, a flight review within 12 months (901.90)
No — it needs the advanced examination, not the advanced certificate
Start this track
What does ladder is the studying: the Level 1 Complex material assumes the Basic and Advanced syllabuses, which is why the tracks are ordered this way on the site. The order is pedagogy, not licensing.
Not sure which one applies to you?
The certificate is decided by the operation, not by how much you want to learn: it turns on where you fly, how close to people, and whether you can see the aircraft. Every lesson cites the section that decides it, so the answer is checkable rather than a matter of opinion. Look up the operating conditions, or start with the Basic track and read outward.
The exam simulator draws from all three tracks, and coverage shows which lessons have questions of their own yet.