Explainer
The Flight Operations Library: AFM, FCOM, QRH, MEL, and the EFB
The Shelf
Four Documents, Three Owners
- AFM — Airplane Flight Manual
- The certification root of the whole shelf: the manufacturer's manual approved with the aircraft's type certificate, carrying the limitations, procedures, and performance data the certification basis requires. Everything else in the library operationalises it; nothing in the library may contradict it.
- FCOM — Flight Crew Operating Manual
- The manufacturer's working manual for flight crews: systems descriptions, normal and non-normal procedures, and operating techniques, in far more usable depth than the AFM's certification language. It is the document pilots actually study — and the one operators most often customize into their own operations manuals.
- QRH — Quick Reference Handbook
- The time-critical extract: abnormal and emergency checklists, condensed for use in the seat while the event is happening. Derived from the FCOM and revised in step with it — a QRH out of step with its FCOM is not a documentation defect, it is an operational hazard.
- MEL — Minimum Equipment List
- The operator's regulator-approved answer to a practical question: with this item inoperative, may the aircraft dispatch, and under what conditions? Each operator derives its MEL from the type's Master MEL (MMEL) — no less restrictive, tailored to the operation — making it one of the few manuals the operator owns outright.
Around the core four sit the operator's own operations manuals, performance data, and charts — a shelf with three distinct owners: the regulator's approval on the AFM and MEL, the manufacturer's authorship of the FCOM and QRH, and the operator's accountability for the whole assembly being current in every cockpit. It is the maintenance library's mirror image, with one sharpening difference: the reader may be at altitude when the content matters.
Delivery
The EFB Is a Channel, Not a Reader
The whole shelf now travels by Electronic Flight Bag, and the EFB inherits every obligation the paper library carried: every device holding the current revision, provably; content usable offline, because connectivity ends at the cabin door; and revision distribution that leaves a record of who received what, when. The structural machinery behind it is the same as the maintenance side's — manufacturers and operators exchanging flight operations data under ATA Spec 2300 — and the delivery discipline is the same one our field guide and revision-currency explainer describe for the hangar. Two streams, one problem: current content, filtered correctly, provably delivered.
FAQ
Questions We Hear
What is the difference between the AFM and the FCOM?
The AFM is the certification document — approved with the type certificate, written in the language of limitations and compliance, and legally authoritative. The FCOM is the manufacturer's operational companion: the same aircraft explained for daily line flying, in the depth and format crews actually work from. When they appear to disagree, the AFM wins, which is why FCOM revisions are checked against it.
What is the difference between a MEL and an MMEL?
The MMEL is the master list for the aircraft type, produced at type level and approved by the regulator: the ceiling of what may be inoperative for dispatch. Each operator derives its own MEL from it — as restrictive or more, never less, adapted to its routes, fleet, and procedures — and gets that MEL approved for its operation. Crews dispatch against the MEL, not the MMEL.
What is an EFB?
An Electronic Flight Bag: the device — today usually a tablet — that carries the flight operations library, charts, and performance applications to the flight deck. The name undersells the obligation: an EFB program is a controlled delivery channel, expected to prove that every device holds current revisions, to work offline, and to fit the operator's approved procedures. A PDF reader with a manual sync ritual meets the name and misses the point.
Is flight operations content covered by the same standards as maintenance manuals?
It is the same structured-content problem under a different specification: ATA Spec 2300 governs the packaging and exchange of flight operations data between manufacturers and operators, where iSpec 2200 and S1000D govern the maintenance side. Operations that treat the two streams as separate worlds usually end up buying and running two of everything — the failure mode, and the opportunity, of the whole territory.
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Two Streams, One Problem?
If your maintenance and flight operations content run as separate worlds — separate tools, separate revision processes, separate proof — that's the duplication we help operators retire.