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Hello All,

When I bought my used Icon in September, I was told I needed to do my oil changes (LL100 vs MoGas rules) and an Annual (condition) Inspection. That's it. My aircraft is NOT leased-back to Icon Aircraft Corp. or used for any commercial purposes. So this all made sense. While speaking to owners who bought their aircraft NEW, they had to sign an agreement that mandates 100hr inspections irrespective of intended use. To me that made perfect sense in the early years of the design since all designs suffer from bathtub reliability curves.

We are now in the portion of the bathtub curve where unexpected failures should have fallen WAY down. Is everyone that is governed by the purchasing agreement still performing 100hr inspections? I realize for some people, 100hrs and Annuals may coincide. As someone who intends to put 200-300 hrs per year on his Icon, I will not fall under that umbrella.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks!

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Michel. I was the one that initially established the 100 hr requirement for the exact reasons you have stated. We were still finding a not insignificant amount of stuff at or near every 100 hrs on most planes. It was always the intent to reduce it once the data indicated that it made sense to do so. The ICON internal fleet of training/sales and several R&D aircraft were leading the fleet where we could track the issues discovered to great detail. These issues have lead to the Notifications, Service Bulletins, and Safety Directives, also changes to the Maintenance Manual. When I left the company almost 2 years ago there were still significant findings at 100 hrs that would indicate that it was still a reasonable thing to do. I did a lot of fleet hour tracking (a side job out of curiosity) of flying hours and the vast majority (95%) of owners did not put more than 100 hrs on their plane a year making it very little additional impact on the customer and leaned more toward safety. Also the highest time airframe 2 years ago was about 1100 hours which isn't a lot and it was ASN 1, which was no longer very representative of the actual production aircraft.

Given my extensive experience with the aircraft as the former Chief Test Pilot, former Chief Company Pilot, and former head of the Research and Development for the better part of 6 years (I also have a BS in Aerospace Engineering and Airframe and Powerplant Certificate), I would strongly discourage you from putting more than 100 hours on the plane without standard inspections especially if you operate in Salt Water.

For what its worth the 100 hr mandate comes from the maintenance manual not the sales agreement and by law 14 CFR 91.327 (b) 1 you are required to follow that maintenance manual. So unless ICON revises the maintenance manual from requiring 100 hr inspections you are stuck doing them regardless of your operation.

Finally I have no affiliation with the company and only monitor and respond to this forum because as Pilot, Engineer, A&P and relentless lover of aircraft and this industry, I care (and have always cared) about all of your safety and providing you all with accurate information based on my experience.

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Thanks for the info Brett!

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Thank you for this well thought out and informative response. I have never done the 100hr just the annual. How involved is the inspection if there are no findings?

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The 100hr and Annual Condition Inspection are the exact same scope and detail on this aircraft type, other aircraft can be different in this regard.

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I agree w Bret on doing the 100 hour. I bought ours new, so I am bound by the contract, but even if I wasn't, based on my experience I'd do the 100 hour. My partner and I have put on about 100 hours every ~10 months. BTW, scheduling an Icon service tech here has been problematic enough that I am now out of annual so I have my very first ferry permit and ferry inspection. An advantage of the 100 hour is if you go over 100 hours on your last flight, you are still allowed one more flight (w/o a ferry permit) as long as it is to the service location.

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I am bound by the contract

As Bret noted, this has nothing at all to do with the contract. It is written into the maintenance manual which was an FAA approved document and deviation from that is an FAA issue, not an Icon/contract issue. You could probably get a lot of that contract thrown out by a court, but you probably aren't going to get the FAA regs tossed

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So Gabriel, does that mean that One Day, the maintenance manual would be rev'ed to reflect a more common approach of requiring a 100hr inspection ONLY for commercial users?

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So Gabriel, does that mean that One Day, the maintenance manual would be rev'ed to reflect a more common approach of requiring a 100hr inspection ONLY for commercial users?

It is speculation on my part to say this but I believe that is a logical future scenario, yes, to the extent that anyone who is not a commercial operator goes over 100 hours a year. If I had to guess, I'd say that's another couple years out until there are a few hundred thousand more, or even a couple million fleet hours to pull data from to justify that.

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I think everyone on this forum should give a read to 14 CFR 91.327 top to bottom this covers exactly the operating limitations on your aircraft.

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I am just looking forward to when things will normalize compared to other aircraft. Thanks for keeping us honest! We all need to better understand Aircraft Sustainment requirements.

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OK, I read 14 CFR 91.327, I must admit, I may have missed doing the following on 1 or 2 flights, but will rectify for future flights...
"Each person operating an aircraft issued a special airworthiness certificate in the light-sport category must advise each person carried of the special nature of the aircraft and that the aircraft does not meet the airworthiness requirements for an aircraft issued a standard airworthiness certificate."
Icon pilots: "Welcome to my Icon A5, the FAA requires I tell you that this aircraft is dangerous as heck! OK... Ready to go?"

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haha, yeah or you can just point to the statement right by the canopy handle. Light Sport and Experimental are treat somewhat similarly since neither is type certified. I think this ship will be sailing soon as S-LSA is finally finding a foot hold and becoming more respected by the FAA. In other words I think the "experiment" is over and the results speak for themselves LSA is no more dangerous than a certified aircraft. The FAA just hasn't quite sealed the deal on that flip in thinking yet.

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haha, yeah or you can just point to the statement right by the canopy handle.

I'm surprised there wasn't a disclaimer placarding requirement like with Experimental.

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I'm surprised there wasn't a disclaimer placarding requirement like with Experimental.

There is its right by the canopy handle It literally says:

"THIS AIRCRAFT WAS MANUFACTURED IN ACCORDANCE WITH LIGHT SPORT AIRCAFT AIRWORTHINESS STANDARDS AND DOES NOT CONFORM TO STANDARD AIRWORTHINESS CATEGORY AIRWORTHINESS REQUIREMENTS"

you can look in your plane or you can look at the POH page 2-17 to see a graphic of it in the placards section

All S-LSA's must have this placard

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There is its right by the canopy handle

I forgot it had that much text to it!

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Hey Gabriel, so your earlier comment sent me back to the operating agreement. You're right of course. But per your comment about the logical future scenario, the agreement says " by the next annual condition inspection or 100 hour inspection, as applicable" so your lawyers accommodated for a potential future change to the maintenance manual. At least that piece of paper won't need to be re-visited.

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Hey Gabriel, so your earlier comment sent me back to the operating agreement. You're right of course. But per your comment about the logical future scenario, the agreement says " by the next annual condition inspection or 100 hour inspection, as applicable" so your lawyers accommodated for a potential future change to the maintenance manual. At least that piece of paper won't need to be re-visited.

Exactly, now we just have to hope that Icon gets enough data in the next few years to consider modifying their maintenance manual to allow non-commercial operators to go to straight annual inspections, and not have any 100 hour requirement. That will only matter, though, to anyone getting in more than 100 hours a year, and there are very, very few Icons flying in any non-commercial capacity (i.e. no lease-back for flight instruction/demo, etc.) that are breaking 100 hours a year, so it's probably only a relevant difference for 5% of the fleet, if that. I hope to have a point in life that I have enough time to just play in the Icon that I'd break 100 hours a year!

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OK, I read 14 CFR 91.327, I must admit, I may have missed doing the following on 1 or 2 flights, but will rectify for future flights...
"Each person operating an aircraft issued a special airworthiness certificate in the light-sport category must advise each person carried of the special nature of the aircraft and that the aircraft does not meet the airworthiness requirements for an aircraft issued a standard airworthiness certificate."
Icon pilots: "Welcome to my Icon A5, the FAA requires I tell you that this aircraft is dangerous as heck! OK... Ready to go?"

Brilliant !