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Not an ICON SeaRey!

Make sure you keep your finger on the landing gear light until you get what you’re looking for! Happen to me in flight. The nose gear fuse blew.

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Hope all worked out and it was resolved before landing. Thanks for the reminder!

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Fortunately it did. Quick swap of 7.5 amp fuse and I was back in business. Why I train my students that the landing gear handle is your “Nemesis.” ALWAYS hold finger there until you get exactly what you expect or it could get ya!

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Excellent! Great pics too. Thanks for the update.

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Any idea why the fuse blew?

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I’ve got annual coming up and it will be looked into. 2nd time it’s happened too. First was in water, below 10kts, preparing for controllability check before ramping. This time I was inside white arc and was lowing gear in flight for photos.

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I’d be interested to know. I believe it’s a bit of a known issue as well. Has your nose landing gear received all the updates?

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Yep, I’ve followed all the inspections. Very weird.

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This happened to me this past Saturday after doing some water flying.

I've submitted the below info to ICON as well:

Here is my hypothesis on the failure mode for the nose gear fuse observed to have blown on moving gear switch to down/land position - I believe it starts much earlier than the actual gear-down request:

HYPOTHESIS - GEAR DOWN FUSE BLOW

- In flight prior to event
- Plane is maneuvered in positive G's (up to 4 allowable without flaps)
- Downward moment (torque) produced on nose gear
- Nose gear deflects actuator just enough to release full-up detection switch
- Since panel gear switch is still "water/up", the actuator activates as it's now perceiving "RAISE GEAR" situation
- The increased load from the +G prevents the activation of the detection switch
- Competition between moment/torque and actuator causes 7.5A fuse to blow
- Fuse failure is not noticed unless you happened to be looking directly at either the gear switch or the fuse panel during the maneuver
- Plane exits maneuver
- Gear-up detection switch is re-activated (since the actuator didn't actually move, it just deflected and is now out of +G)
- Actuator stops trying to lift gear since detection switch is closed
- Fuse will now appear ok since the fuse will only illuminate when it is receiving power from actuator but the actuator is now idle so fuse is dark
- Gear switch will show "water/up" as detection switch is closed
- (more flying, and everything "looks" ok, but fuse is covertly blown)
- Later, airport (land) approach (or other reason to extend gear)
- Gear switch set to "land/down"
- TRANSIT illuminates and stays there
- Fuse (now lit) observed to be blown
- Change of fuse "magically" solves the problem

Thoughts?

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...the key here being that I believe the fuse is blowing earlier but in a situation where it would never be noticed (if you're pulling G's and you're looking at the landing gear switch or the ceiling of stowage, you probably have bigger issues...)

...it also isn't obvious that the fuse can only be observed to be blown when the circuit it is protecting is actually active.

The good news is this seems easy to verify.

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Interesting thought. Could be. Now for me, on first occurrence, I had water landed and idle taxiing when nose gear would not go down and the fuse was illuminated and replaced, on second weeks later (after hrs of flying) I had just done a splash and go and was wings level when I lowered gear and nose gear didn’t come down and I had to replace illuminating nose fuse again.

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Same situation as me: I was on normal approach to the airport when my gear did not go down and fuse illuminated.

...But I am suggesting that the fuse had already been blown in flight before that - question is, did you maneuver above 1.5g when flying just before?

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It's an ICON and it's so much fun, so guilty as charged

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You're good up to +4g (flaps up) so bring it on!!! I love doing -0.5g for a moment - makes me giggle like an idiot LOL - and btw the fact that the gear has a +1.5g transition limit suggests that if the detection switch opened, the actuator would certainly be overloaded at > +1.5g...

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Totally!!!