Landing Gear Indicator Lights

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rdrobson
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Landing Gear Indicator Lights

Post by rdrobson »

Last night I took my DA62 up for the first time solo at night. When I went to drop the gear, no 3 green lights greeted me but the gear unsafe light lit and went out as it should. I cycled it a couple of times without any further success but then I remembered my instructor saying that when the DA42 panel lights are dimmed, the gear lights go out. Bingo, same thing on the 62. I had being playing with the brightness as I was flying so they were all lit up on the ground when I left. The dimming doesn't impact the gear unsafe light and I don't think the flap light indicator was dimmed either.

Anyway, something to remember if it happens to you.

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Re: Landing Gear Indicator Lights

Post by jb642DA »

Same thing in the DA42.

I think it will affect the flap lights also in the DA62 - it does in the 42. (I couldn't find any reference to this in the AFM though)
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CFIDave
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Re: Landing Gear Indicator Lights

Post by CFIDave »

This affects all Diamond models, for flap indicators as well as gear indicators. When you dim the panel at night, you also dim the flap and gear indicator lights.

Where this continues to be an issue is with student pilots and renters from flight schools. Flight schools routinely get complaints from students/renters that "the flap lights no longer work," when what really happened is that somebody else flew the plane the previous evening and left the panel lights dimmed. It's embarrassing for the student/renter to find that the fix is to simply re-adjust the cockpit lighting.

After a night landing, I make it a habit to restore cockpit lighting to off as part of shutdown.
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slipstream86
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Re: Landing Gear Indicator Lights

Post by slipstream86 »

The DE-ICE mode annunciator lights on our DA-62's are most annoying at night. They are not paired to the panel light dimmer knob, so they shine with a very stark white/yellow light at full brightness right in front of the P1's face whenever the system is used. Easy solution is to cover them up with an appropriately sized piece of paper placed between the swithches as required.
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Re: Landing Gear Indicator Lights

Post by dgger »

slipstream86 wrote:The DE-ICE mode annunciator lights on our DA-62's are most annoying at night.
This.

Same thing in a DA42. I always wondered, how that happened with an otherwise remarkably well designed cockpit...
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