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May 16th, 2007, 23:43
| #1 |
| Senior Member  Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 992
|  What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? The title says it all - let's hear it! Last edited by C150J; May 16th, 2007 at 23:56. Reason: Cannot spell. |
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May 16th, 2007, 23:50
| #2 |
| Old Skool Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: _
Posts: 5,316
| Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? the autopilot FYI: to fix the title click "advanced" after you start editing.
__________________ "It takes just as much time to be nice to someone as it does to be a jerk." |
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May 16th, 2007, 23:59
| #3 |
| Old Skool  Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Park City, UT
Posts: 12,321
  | Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? The left engine.
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May 17th, 2007, 00:05
| #4 |
| Old Skool  Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Spokane, WA
Posts: 6,515
| Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? An AC generator. A pack. And the ADP. But probably the one that cost me the most trouble was the autothrottles. What a carpet dance that was....
__________________ Click here to see how I became a UPS pilot http://www.jetcareers.com/content/view/65/132/ |
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May 17th, 2007, 00:06
| #5 | |
| Old Skool  Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Left Seat
Posts: 5,523
| Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? Quote:
 The biggest I've had MEL'd was the fire switch guard cover. Actually we didn't take the plane, although a management pilot did I think. Shortly their after they updated the MEL book to prevent that from being MELable. | |
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May 17th, 2007, 00:07
| #6 |
| Old Skool  Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: lower canada
Posts: 1,611
| Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? You can't MEL an engine! ha I think BobDduck had the FMS AND autopilot MEL'd on the same flight.
__________________ According to a report by Goldman Sachs economists, "the most important contributor to higher profit margins over the past five years has been a decline in labor's share of national income." |
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May 17th, 2007, 00:46
| #7 |
| Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 588
| Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? An air-conditioning pack AND the autopilot on the same plane during the summer.........screw that noise...  |
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May 17th, 2007, 02:40
| #8 |
| Old Skool  Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Phoenix, AZ
Posts: 2,169
| Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? Didn't happen to me, but I dispatched poor souls with MELs for autopilots, inop packs, unpressurized aircraft, no FMS, no heat in the cockpit in winter, and inop SELCAL so they couldn't even call dispatch directly! The Mel for Selcal, meant alternative means of communication, so the pilots had to communicate to us through the rampers! Ha, do they even answer the radio! Good luck there!
__________________ My accomplishments: 30,000 hours logged, at yo momma's house! |
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May 17th, 2007, 08:24
| #9 |
| Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Florida
Posts: 246
| Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? Both packs! Unpressurized flight. They wanted us to fly CVG-BHM and then BHM-LGA with full seats at 10,000 in the summer unpressurized. Yeah, right! |
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May 17th, 2007, 09:05
| #10 | |
| Senior Member  Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Random hotels of America
Posts: 464
| Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? Quote:
 What I would do for autothrottles! | |
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May 17th, 2007, 13:03
| #11 |
| Senior Member  Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Wasilla, AK
Posts: 976
  | Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? The "biffy" on a 2+ hour flight. . .
__________________ Urban Dictionary: /chee-CHA-ko/ Alaska Airlines 737 FO http://www.AllAboutGod.com |
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May 17th, 2007, 14:28
| #12 |
| Old Skool  Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: OH or is it MX??
Posts: 4,549
| Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? My Co-pilot/FO on every flight! 
__________________ Get Busy Living, or Get Busy Dying.... |
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May 17th, 2007, 15:03
| #13 |
| Old Skool Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Left Seat
Posts: 5,523
| Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? Single Pilot operations  |
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May 17th, 2007, 17:28
| #14 |
| Old Skool  Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Memphis, TN
Posts: 13,634
| Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? I had the gear MEL'd during IOE, so I got to fly CVG-DTW with the gear pinned down on a revenue flight. See the other thread for my long day with the MLG BAY OVHT deferred (gear down for 10 minutes after takeoff). A couple of days before that we had a single PACK a/c, so we were filed at 25,000 ft between MEM-GSP-MEM-CAE with t-storms all over the place. Fun.
__________________ "I'm The Doctor, by the way. Run for your life!" |
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May 17th, 2007, 19:47
| #15 |
| Old Skool  Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Frigid NWA Hub
Posts: 1,883
| Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? Apparently you can MEL the oil pressure master warning message on the Saab. We refused to fly it after one flight filled with *ding*ding*ding* as it cycled on and off.
__________________ "I'd rather screw my way around the country then blow my way around..." - Saab 340 Driver |
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May 17th, 2007, 20:53
| #16 | ||
| Old Skool Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: OH or is it MX??
Posts: 4,549
| Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? Quote:
Quote:
__________________ Get Busy Living, or Get Busy Dying.... | ||
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May 17th, 2007, 21:16
| #17 | |
| Senior Member  Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Newport Beach, CA
Posts: 548
| Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? Quote:
You name it, I've had it on the SAAB. They DMI'd the Captain's Seat adjustment one day. My favorite was the Bleed Leak Indicator. It had been MEL'd 3 times. Once I read the write-up, let's just say it wasn't the indication. | |
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May 17th, 2007, 21:54
| #18 |
| Senior Member  Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Raleigh, NC
Posts: 1,272
| Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? I had the gear retraction deferred, which was a pain because we had to keep reminding dispatch that fuel burn would not be the same with the gear hanging (they apparently were unfamiliar with their "MEL Calculator"). A deferred fuel indicating system is one of the biggest pains in the a$$. On the ATR, it required finding some ladder high and stable enough to get up to the magnetic level indicators on the wings, then converting the readings to fuel quantities based on flight manual tables. On the CRJ, you have to check the MLI's and inclinometers first, call maintainance to get a quantity for each wing, figure out how many pounds you need to add per side, convert to gallons for the fuel truck, and then check the inclinometers and MLI's again when they're done to make sure you've got enough gas. Good luck with the 24min turn. One of the trickiest I've seen was an MEL'd auto pressurization system system on the ATR. The manual control was extremely finicky, and took a lot of attention away from normal duties because you had to screw around with it so much. |
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May 17th, 2007, 22:33
| #19 |
| Moderator  Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: The Looney Bin
Posts: 9,093
| Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? At Ealge we'd fly with pacs deferred all the time. The most irritating (from my standpoint) thing to have deferred was the yaw dampener on the ATR 42. Made for a real 'swingin' ride in my seat in the back! If I remember right the yaw dampener could be deferred on the 42 but not on the 72.
__________________ PPL SEL 100-ish hours TT Former American Airlines F/A (12 months) Former Simmons/Eagle F/A (6 years) Former Eagle ground school instructor (1 year) Former Eagle IOE instructor (3 years) |
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May 17th, 2007, 23:34
| #20 |
| Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Newport Beach, CA
Posts: 548
| Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? On the ERJ, our Fuel Indication MEL is a huge pain. They had to issue a special Flight Information Letter regarding that MEL. It's also an item that must be covered on IOE and UOE. It's a huge pain in the ass!! So far, I haven't had it. Something tells me it's coming one of these days. The Rudder Limiter on the SAAB was a big pain, too. It limited us to 180 KIAS. It was a 10-day item, too. In Colgan's book, that would be when it would be fixed and not a moment sooner. |
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May 18th, 2007, 01:17
| #21 |
| Old Skool  Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: KMKE
Posts: 1,945
| Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? Flight director, flaps. 10 seperate cockpit lights out writeups occurring at DAWN, thus delaying my next leg by 30 minutes due to the amount of time it took to defer them and screwing ME out of lunch and numbers of passengers trying to connect later in the day as we were behind from this point on. They were written up to make a point to the mechanics to change the bulbs and such. What the author didn't realize (and I didn't have the heart to break it to him) is that the lights out weren't the mechanics' fault. None of the bulbs out were obvious (just random) and the mechanics check them when the plane is in for a phase not every day. Otherwise they don't know unless we write them up. Duh! Cargo door light illuminates Seat 2A is inop (based on my 30 seconds of trouble shooting, seat 2A actually works and seats 1A, 3C, 4C, 7C, and 8A are inop. besides, as far as i know these seats have about 3 inches of play in the seatback and only ever move an 1/2 an inch when you use the button anyway) Copilot's airspeed indicator backlighting inop (i guess we don't need that) I had a friend tell me that he wanted to write up an autopilot and when he consulted a mechanic on the wording, the mechanic threatened to just remove the autopilot and all of a sudden there was nothing wrong with the autopilot
__________________ British Airways flight asks for push back clearance from terminal. Control Tower replies: "And where is the world's most experienced airline going today without filing a flight plan?" |
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May 18th, 2007, 09:01
| #22 | |
| Senior Member  Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Low Earth Orbit
Posts: 1,348
| Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? Quote:
SELCAL isn't a radio. SELective CALling is used by ARINC with the HF radio on overwater OPS. It is used by the ARINC operators, not pilots. It is essentially a doorbell used by ATC to tell pilots to answer the HF radio. SELCAL is the code ATC uses to select a particular aircraft's "bell." | |
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May 18th, 2007, 10:23
| #23 | |
| Old Skool Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Left Seat
Posts: 5,523
| Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? Quote:
"Aircraft calling SFO radio... stand by." | |
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May 18th, 2007, 10:48
| #24 | |
| Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Newport Beach, CA
Posts: 548
| Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? Quote:
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May 18th, 2007, 12:41
| #25 | |
| Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Low Earth Orbit
Posts: 1,348
| Re: What's the biggest (most flight-critical, odd, etc.) item you've had MEL'd? Quote:
If we are on the ground ops just calls our BackBerry (text and/or phone). In flight: AFIS (equated to ACARS) or the flight phone. Question: If you are monitoring the frequency (as required), why would they need to call to tell you to call them? Seems redundant. I have only seen selcal used so you do not have to monitor a frequency (until called). | |
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