I think its PERFECT for Flying to our Boat....and I've seriously thought about one and Kick myself for not getting on the list earlier.. We have a 44' power Catamaran and the marina has a ramp next to boat...see pic.....and a Basin to land in, right in front of boat....MAN, What a setup for a ICON. .....If weather is bad, just taxi it up the Ramp and park it in parking lot....OR Better, keep trailer at marina and you can Trailer it home, if need be.....Marina is 300 miles from our house. ......Interstate all the way....Ferrari time 3:40 minutes I have 300 hours in a L 19 Birddog, mostly Towing my Dad and others, in their Sailplanes.....But haven't flown in a while. But the ICON could Tempt me back...Just Because it mixes with boats so Good. Mark Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Saw one operate at the Seaplane base at Oshkosh.. quite the cool thing.. definitely an upmarket device at $240K but would fit the right segment perfectly. They had big stand with big flashy vehicles and plane on trailer outside emphasising their main target market. Quite the different thing to Searey stand which I also visited and was quite taken with at half the price. Rotax also announced new engine which would be the go for either model.. 135hp Turbo + injected giving the best of both worlds they have in separate engines but not offered together till now.. ready for 2017 is what I was told.
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Just read about this on Bloomberg: The Icon A5 Is the Closest Thing to a Flying Car You Can Buy Today - Bloomberg Business I saw many complaints about the price in this thread. I paid the same money for my Huracan. It seats two, no cargo capacity to speak of, and does not go on the water NOR the air. Plus the Huracan is easy enough to drive and 'safe enough' that pretty much any idiot can drive it fast with practically no training (at least very little). By comparison, the icon lsa makes a lot of sense.
Not sure what I'm looking at but this certainly looked cool, sitting on the ramp last summer at 39N... edit: ok FlightAware says it's a Lake LA-200 Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I remember the first time I flew past a Lake I was like "WTF is that"? Had to go home and look it up. Cool planes.
Lakes are pretty cool and they are still pretty expensive. Someone I know used to fly his from central florida down to the bahamas.
I think they took a very sharp left turn. It was originally to be a $130k plane that sky rocketed due to the scaled up increase. The plan was for an AFFORDABLE LSA, not another ANOTHER $150k+ LSA. There are lots of other very noteworthy planes out there, for less. They F'd up in short. They should have stuck to original market plan. They DeLorean'd it.
it's worse than the price (in the $300K neighborhood) it's the horrible sales contract they released recently which includes: You can't ever sue us provisions, you pay us if you sell clause, we will basically put a black box in your plane that only we can access and use the info as we wish clause, etc. etc. The said they were making customer deliveries last year and in production. Lies They also announced earlier this year that they "were proud" to have been nominated for the Collier Trophy. What they forgot to mention is they nominated themselves.
Read somewhere that it has a Ballistic Recovery Chute. Many parts mfg for them by Cirrus. Are they in production?
https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2016/march/31/icon-gambit While I understand that they are trying to limit the liability and lawsuits that make business difficult for GA manufacturers, it comes across as so heavy handed and draconian. I suspect that they will scare off the rest of the buyers that weren't scared off with the price doubling.
Press release yesterday from Icon. What can be inferred is this: Production basically delayed a year and half the work force canned due to the fact they don't know how to manufacture an airplane. They may not ever take off.
Historically it has not been unusual in the aerospace world to have high hopes of going from building 5 conformal airframes over a couple years to full rate production immediately after issuance of TC. I think the company woke up and made the correct move, and more so were honest about it. Why would you keep 60 employees around twiddling their thumbs while burning huge amounts of capital?
I was really interested, but found it too pricey for what it offered. Always fancied the Republic SeaBee, especially at this price level. Image Unavailable, Please Login
