Forgot to Bid, that's funny! Thanks for the laugh.

 

I must not understand what "balancing" means.

I don't see why you have two versions of MEL for one item. At Comair, we don't do MELs; rather, we "defer an item per the MEL". Perhaps that's where you're losing me.

A deferral is a deferral. Doesn't matter who writes it in the logbook.

I don't know how much paperwork MX is doing back at base while we're putting our entry into the aircraft logbook, but I do know that their copy stays clean and dry if the plane should go down.

 

I can't believe a thread about "balancing" (****?) MEL items has gone eight pages.

 

Well, we don't actually have two MEL's. In the twenty years I've been here, we've always had a procedure for a crew deferral. However, the FAA's stance for us has always been that once the airplane arrived at a company maintenance station, formal deferral BY MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL had to replace the crew deferral. They've changed their mind apparently.

 

Jeebus!! The only difference is you write in the block beside your write up instead of below it and fill out a white sticker instead of an orange sticker. You want to get paid how much to do this?

 

Really they're just bringing Eagle in line with all of the airlines MEL procedures.

 

Then Comair doesn't do this. Our FAA doesn't share your FAA's stance on the issue.

 

What the FAA isn't, uniform:



But from training to procedures if the FAA is trying to become more uniform in every aspect then more power to them and keep it up.

 

I wish that were the only difference. I realize it's tough to really understand the changes without showing you with pictures or illustrations - words just don't convey what I'm trying to describe in the mind's eye. Trust me on this, if it were as simple as you describe, nobody would even notice. The amount of writing/documentation has gone WAY up from before. Way up.

Do you most of you guys fill out the three blocks all the way across the log page - with all the aircraft data (total aircraft time, ATA number, Control number, employee number, etc), and then fill out the M.I.C. sheet in the front of the logbook (sort of a summary page in front), along with the MEL Placard that gets stuck into the inside cover of the logbook? If you do, then I guess that answers the original poster's question. Yes.

We never have. By the way, most of us don't give a rip about the pay. We worry about the very real possibility of screwing up the paperwork somewhere during this process (some little minutiae) and getting violated for it. Our company self-discloses suspected violations to protect themselves and basically put it on their employees' shoulders - "Woops, we flew X number of flights with the maintenance log improperly filled out. Crews A,B,C, D, and E flew the airplane like this and didn't catch the mistake. Here are their heads on a platter. Please don't fine us."

I'm sure the process is here to stay in its current (new) form. I'll adapt to it and take my time to be sure it's been done absolutely perfectly. I'm thinking that the company's on time performance will suffer, however.

 

I believe the new procedure at Eagle is that a flight crew placardable MEL will be performed by the crew irregardless of location - maintenance base or outstation makes no difference.

If you're a Delta crew and the TCAS fails enroute to ATL, do you flight crew placard the TCAS in ATL yourself or simply write up the discrepency and call Delta maintenance?