The Icon A5 made a big splash, you should excuse the pun, at last year’s Oshkosh Airventure. The high-profile marketing campaign posits that there’s a whole generation of high-energy recreational enthusiasts looking to own their own flying motorcycle/jet ski, and they’re putting up some hefty investment capital to back up their vision. *** The company took another major step toward finding out whether that vision has legs when ICON Aircraft founder and CEO Kirk Hawkins made his first flight in the prototype on March 11, 2009, as part of the company’s user trials. The flight took place at Lake Isabella in Kern County, CA, site of 45 earlier test hops. *** “I walked into the test flight completely focused on evaluating the aircraft as a potential customer,” said Hawkins. “As an experienced pilot who’s flown everything from ultralights to fighter jets, I expected my reaction to be, ”˜Yep, it flies just like I expected.
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Finding New Pilots; Icon Takes a Novel Approach
Most aviation participants have been wringing their hands over the declining pilot population. FAA’s database of active pilots has dropped from 825,000 when I began flying to less than 600,000 today…all while the U.S. population has grown by 50 million. We are clearly doing something wrong, and have for too long had a too-inward focus. *** We have some worthy efforts of outreach. EAA has their fine Young Eagles program. AOPA has its Project Pilot. Companies like Cirrus rove from show to event with their mobile display. Yet we need to do much more. *** L.A.-based Icon Aircraft is one such company that is doing so, recently introducing their new Icon A5 LSA. While the company is presently focused on providing a fascinating new aircraft, they’re looking beyond the existing pilot market. According to their CEO Kirk Hawkins, “Icon’s mission is to bring the freedom, fun, and adventure of flying to the thousands of others who have always dreamed of it.
A Seaplane You Can Afford; Aero Adventure Begins a New Chapter for the Aventura Line
Here’s the backdrop of today’s update on the LSA seaplane sector as summer approaches.
According to Law360, an online legal news source, “Light-Sport Aircraft manufacturer Icon Aircraft filed for Chapter 11 protection in Delaware bankruptcy court with more than $170 million in debt and plans for an asset sale and liquidation.” You may have read (here) that Icon got an initial offer of $13.5 million. As an industry contact told me for the earlier report, “That would hardly make a dent in their liabilities.” The person was right, it appears. A proposed new buyer referenced in the earlier article agreed to take on Icon’s debt but the sales must still go through an auction process, I was told.
OK, let’s come back to Earth… or water perhaps …or either. Aero Adventure continues to fly as it has for three decades (though management has changed at least three times over the period).
Summer’s Almost Here! State-of-the-Sector Report for LSA Seaplanes
One of the most active sectors in light aviation is LSA seaplanes. We’ve seen ups and downs, arrivals and departures of LSA seaplane producers. Admittedly, these flying machines are more complex than current-day LSA. For example, amphibs need retractable landing gear and substantial boat hulls able to take water loads.
LSA seaplanes constitute a highly fluid market yet we can see clues suggesting what might be ahead for some of the main brands. With summertime approaching, this State-of-the-Sector article attempts to keep up with the rapidly changing landscape (or waterscape).
We’ll first look at two high-end entries that have been in the news and conclude with present LSA seaplanes and their status in the market.
Vickers Wave
Writing for AVweb (part of Firecrown, which also owns Flying and ByDanJohnson.com plus several other publications), my fellow aviation journalist Russ Niles stated, “New Zealand-based Vickers Aircraft Company says it intends to make its first delivery of the Wave two-place amphibious aircraft to a U.S.
Do You Love LSA and Sport Pilot Kits? Calling for Writers in the Affordable Space
By the middle of March, this website had exceeded all prior monthly records. In only 16 days, we recorded an all-time high in single-day non-repeating visitor count and in monthly visitors.
So, it is already certain that I will conclude my full-time activities with ByDanJohnson.com on a very high note and I am grateful beyond what I can convey. I had hoped to “go out at the top of my game” and this strong response from visitors is a wonderful send-off.
Please believe me, though, the genuine thanks are from me to you, not the other way around.
I am deeply appreciative of your loyal readership for these past 20 years. Thank you from the bottom of my pilot’s heart.
Is Affordable Aviation
Really a Thing?
I didn’t know I was creating the affordable aviation space when I began my online adventure back in 1999 — it took four years of work in those early days of the World Wide Web but we went live on April 1, 2004.
Top 50 Video Review: Lisa Akoya, an Innovative, Sleek LSA Seaplane
“Lisa Akoya: You’ve Never Seen Anything Like It,” trumpeted the lead image. Ten-year-on translation: “You’ve never seen it.”
Inspired design, cutting edge ideas, elegant sleekness, and unique features set the French LSA seaplane apart and may inspire successive designs but Lisa’s Akoya never made it to market.
No wonder,” exclaimed some! More than a decade back, they approached a retail price of $400,000. After ten years of dollar inflation, that number would be way past $500,000 today.
Remarkable as it may be to those of us with normal incomes, buyers for high-end products seem often to emerge. Cirrus and their steady sales of million-dollar-plus four seaters is proof of that. To appeal to such well-heeled pilots, a company better deliver a beautiful, functional, well-supported aircraft. Doing that expertly at a premium level gets expensive.
Here’s Looking at Lisa
Lisa Akoya dates to the very beginning of Light-Sport Aircraft. In 2004, two aviation enthusiasts, Erick Herzberger and Luc Bernole, established Lisa Airplanes in the heart of the French Alps.
Ups and Downs of LSA Seaplanes — Who’s Hot and Who’s Not in Fall 2023
Hard to believe, isn’t it? Summer is over, we’re into fall and looking at winter. Surprisingly, that means that in a couple months the sale of boats and other watercraft begins to ramp up. Marine shows are commonly scheduled for the dead of winter. If that seems odd, think of it this way: When it’s cold and ugly outside, why not think about boats and bikinis?
Being pilots, of course, we think about seaplanes.
This article focuses on two bits of good news for relative newcomers to this aviation sector, shifts to challenges facing two longtime suppliers of LSA seaplanes, and ends on a positive note. Let’s get into it…
What’s Hot?
Icon Aircraft — “We have some exciting news in the Icon world today,” started a news release from the A5 LSA seaplane producer. “Our 200th production just rolled off the assembly line!” The Vacaville, California company reported starting deliveries to customers in early 2018.
Announcing a New Series — 50 Most Popular Light Aviation Videos of the Last Decade
My most ambitious series ever is a showcase of the best of the best. In this series beginning right now, I will explore dozens of top videos made by my partner-in-movies, Videoman Dave, known properly as Dave Loveman. The videos aren’t my picks or his, though. They’re yours!
In each article, I will go beyond a short description and a video link. I’ll also update the information on the subject aircraft (a few engines are included). My goal is to celebrate video success stories while also providing fresh, useful details.
Dave and I started doing videos together back in 2007, shortly after Light-Sport Aircraft arrived on the scene. Since I joined him we’ve produced close to 1,000 videos while tripling our audience.
My series will touch on the top 50 most-watched videos on Videoman Dave’s Light Sport & Ultralight Flyer YouTube channel. In all we’ll review dozens of aircraft, three engines plus electric, an ultralight review, and a Mosaic update.
GONE FLYING! — Affordable Aviation to Spread More Widely via Flying Magazine Channels
For a long time, my entire focus has been recreational aviation news. Normally, the news is about an aircraft, a new engine, or some innovative flying product. The news is rarely about the messenger, ByDanJohnson.com.
As many who attended Sun ‘n Fun 2023 learned and even more discovered via online news — Flying Media has acquired the ByDanJohnson aviation brand and all of the written, photographic, or video content created under the tagline, “By Dan Johnson.”
This content dates to 1976. Since the mid-1990s, much of this work migrated from print to the web. Work on the website began in 1999… a mere four years after the World Wide Web was birthed by the Netscape browser.
Building a website was very challenging then — we called it “stick-built,” as every line of code to make it work had to be written essentially from scratch. WordPress, which today delivers ByDanJohnson.com and about one-third of all websites worldwide, did not exist in 1999.
How’s This for Affordable? …FREE! You Could Win One of Two Premium Special LSA!
I regularly say this website follows aircraft you can afford. Whenever I write that word, I know someone will object saying that (fill-in-the-price) is too expensive. I get that. We all have a different budget and our budget can change quickly.
How about if the aircraft was essentially free? And what if you could choose between two highly-desirable models? What if the only cost to get your “lottery” ticket was to subscribe to a popular magazine?
Gee, fellow flying fans — I’d say that sounded like the bargain of 2023. It’s the most lucrative giveaway that has been unveiled in the LSA space since it began almost 20 years ago.
Thanks, Flying!
When I was a young pilot — quite a long time ago — one of the first aviation magazines I ever read was Flying. You could buy it on any newsstand. With a 96-year history, anyone getting involved in flying ended up reading Flying magazine.
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