Preparing Bravo Zulus
The BZ section of Mech recognizes maintainers who have done work that far exceeds expectations. We want to make sure that their story and photo are equally professional. This quick guide will help you prepare a BZ that will look good and clearly explain what they did.
Criteria: The maintainer is being recognized for superior performance: saving a life, or preventing certain damage to an aircraft or equipment. BZs are not intended for people who simply do their job (such as just following a checklist). Copy should be reviewed and submitted through the chain of command.
Photos: Magazine publication requires high-resolution photographs. It may take an hour to get a good photo that is well-lit, in focus, and most importantly, shows someone who is comfortable and relaxed. Here are some tips:
- Don't have your maintainer stand at attention or parade rest.
- If you can recreate the action of the BZ or get your subject in a similar work area, so much the better.
- Set the resolution on your digital camera at 300 dpi, if possible. The resulting image file must be more than 400kb.
- Take several photos to allow us to select the best one and so that the subject relaxes.
- To get your aircraft in the photo, place the subject about 30 feet in front of the aircraft.
- Don't embed the photo in a Word document; send images separately as a .jpg, .bmp, or .tif.
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Writing the Text: The BZ is only two paragraphs, so keep it short. Just give us the facts and the narrative, and tell us why it was important or significant. Please omit the award-citation text at the end.
Example of a concise BZ:
Aircraft 302 was taxiing toward the catapult for final checks when Petty Officer Brown noticed the starboard main-landing-gear (MLG) wheel wobbling. He immediately gave the signal to the catapult officer to suspend the launch and told the flight-deck chief.
A closer inspection revealed the brace-assembly bearing on the upper side was broken in four places, allowing the starboard MLG to have excessive play during taxi.
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