Section 107.37 requires each small unmanned aircraft to yield the right of way to all aircraft, airborne vehicles, and launch and reentry vehicles. Yielding means the small unmanned aircraft gives way and does not pass over, under, or ahead of the other aircraft unless well clear. No person may operate a small unmanned aircraft so close to another aircraft as to create a collision hazard. You can yield only if you see the traffic. Section 107.31 names what that look is for, and the camera feed is not that look.
How the yield works
The small unmanned aircraft is the aircraft that moves. The rule does not ask who arrived first, who is lower, or who is under 400 feet. Near an airport, heliport, or seaplane base, §107.43 adds a second duty: do not interfere with operations and traffic patterns. Holding a survey hover in a helicopter's approach because the drone was there for ten minutes fails both sections. That conflict is also the kind of endangerment described on the careless or reckless operation page.
Section 107.37(a) is on the waiver list in §107.205. A routine flight has no such waiver. The pilot yields. Airport pattern details that help you know where the other aircraft will be are on the operating near airports page.
What you are required to see
Section 107.31 requires the remote pilot in command, the visual observer if one is used, and the person manipulating the controls to be able to see the unmanned aircraft throughout the flight, with vision unaided except for corrective lenses. The regulation lists the purposes of that view. You must know the aircraft's location. You must determine its attitude, altitude, and direction of flight. You must observe the airspace for other air traffic or hazards. You must determine that the unmanned aircraft does not endanger the life or property of another.
Verifying remaining battery capacity is not one of those purposes. Battery state comes from the aircraft's telemetry. An item that asks which purpose is not part of §107.31 is pointing at the battery. The four duties above are the list. How the see-and-avoid duty is structured, including what does not count as vision, is on the visual line of sight page.
The scan that actually finds an aircraft
AIM 8-1-6 describes an effective scan as a series of short, regularly spaced eye movements that bring successive areas into the central visual field. Each movement should be no more than 10 degrees, and each area should be observed for at least one second so the eye can detect an aircraft. A continuous sweep across the horizon, without stopping, does not give the eye that pause. Staring at one point in the central vision and expecting peripheral vision to cover the rest of the sky misses traffic as well.
Use that scan on the sector where a conflict is likely. On a photo flight near a non-towered airport, that sector is the pattern and the final approach, not only the horizon directly behind the controller screen. Ten degrees, then a pause of at least a second, then the next ten degrees. The aircraft you are yielding to is often a small shape against terrain until that pause lets you recognize it.
The camera is the trap
Fixating on the camera feed while the drone drifts toward obstacles is a loss of situational awareness, specifically channelized attention. It is not proper crew resource management, and it is not an application of the DECIDE model. The screen can frame the shot. It cannot observe the airspace for the traffic §107.37 requires you to yield to, and it cannot satisfy the §107.31 purposes.
A workable pattern on a mapping leg is short. Glance at the frame to confirm the coverage, then return your eyes to a 10-degree scan of the arrival path. If a helicopter or a light airplane appears, stop the shot, give way, and remain well clear. Do not pass over, under, or ahead of that aircraft. Resume only after the conflict is gone and you can again see your own aircraft well enough to know its attitude, altitude, and direction.
The test pairs these facts because pilots treat right of way as a slogan and then miss the mechanism. Yielding is mandatory. The look that makes yielding possible has four named purposes, and battery percentage is not among them. The scan is short movements and a real pause. The feed on the controller is where situational awareness goes to die if you stay in it.
Run these items in the free practice test. The see-and-avoid lessons in the course are at pricing.