Icon Aircraft and Cirrus Aircraft announced a deal for the general aviation composite aircraft producer to build parts of the Icon A5 and the news introduced dates for the A5 to come to market.
*** Several years ago I traveled to Cirrus’ Duluth, Minnesota plant in the company of the Icon top leaders, including CEO Kirk Hawkins. In those days, Cirrus was seeking info to make decisions about their since-dropped LSA project called the SRS (photo). The Icon fellows were obviously impressed and the trip subsequently paid off.
*** “Cirrus has a global reputation for producing truly outstanding composite aircraft structures,” said Hawkins. “Their extensive experience, specifically in composite sandwich-production techniques, makes them an ideal production partner for Icon.” Cirrus has built more than 4,000 of its SR models. Returning the admiration, Cirrus CEO Dale Klapmeier said, “The Icon A5 is certainly the most innovative LSA on the market.” He added, “We believe that Light-Sport Aircraft and Sport Pilots are critically important to the growth and future of aviation.”
*** Like most airframe makers these days, Cirrus may not be using all its capacity.
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Icon Back on the Radar Screen
The splash heard ’round the LSA world continues to send out ripples, though it’s been years now since startup LSA maker Icon Aircraft first announced, with considerable marketing fanfare, its amphibious light sport amphibious project, the A5. *** Now comes word today from the company that’s it’s just completed a “demanding regimen of spin-resistance test flights. This milestone will make the A5 the first production aircraft in history to be designed to and completely comply with the Federal Aviation Administration’s full-envelope Part 23 spin-resistance standards developed from NASA’s work on the topic.” *** The lengthy release (a PDF file) goes on to enumerate the general cost in lives and hardware to civilian flying from stall/spin accidents, and cites its intentions to “design the A5 to the more difficult to achieve but safer standard of ‘spin resistant,’” as opposed to spin recoverable. *** Icon also conformed its testing regimen to the FAA Part 23 standard for certified aircraft.
Icon’s Mission of Outreach
Icon’s Mission of Outreach
ICON Aircraft calls itself “a consumer
sport plane manufacturer.”
Kirk Hawkins, an
accomplished engineer, former
U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter pilot
and avid power sports enthusiast,
founded the company. After learning
of the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) major regulatory
changes in ’04 that created
the light sport aircraft category
and sport pilot license, Hawkins
conceived his enterprise in ’05
while attending Stanford
University Business School.
Since then, ICON Aircraft’s sole
purpose has been to bring the freedom,
fun, and adventure of flying
to all who have dreamed of flight,
whether they are existing pilots or
other recreation enthusiasts.
ICON Aircraft believes that consumer-
focused sport aircraft can
do for sport flying what personal
watercraft did for boating. “ICON
aircraft are not only designed to
deliver an amazing and safe flying
experience, but also to inspire us
the way great sports cars do,”
explains the company.
A venture-backed, early stage
company out of Silicon Valley,
ICON Aircraft based its operations
in Southern California,
which is a hotbed for aerospace
engineering, automotive design,
and power sports activities.
Icon Aircraft’s A5 Seaplane
Growing “Out of the Box”
A large number of current pilots
have some sense of foreboding
regarding the dwindling numbers
of the pilot population. Many feel powerless
to change this fact, what
with our airports often surrounded
by a 10-foot-high
chain link
fence topped
with barbed wire
plus prices for training
and airplane ownership
out of reach for many
Americans.
An Eye for the New
Airshow visitors with an
eye for the new may have seen ICON
Aircraft and their gleaming silver-and-accent-red A5 seaplane at
Oshkosh AirVenture ’08. The company’s displays have attracted as
much attention as their aircraft design.
ICON’s A5 is a handsomely stylish Light-Sport Aircraft design.
Airshow visitors had good reason to pay it attention. Many gawking
attendees found A5’s “wow factor” off the charts.
But the story here is much more than the aircraft, fetching though it
is. The real ICON story is that of a company trying to bring aviation
and flying to people who don’t have a pilot’s license.
Icon A5 Update
In mid-water taxi toward its anticipated production date sometime next year, Icon Aircraft was at Oshkosh again with an impressive display booth/tent/hangar, and every time I walked by, whether early morning or late at night, there were always people ogling that beautiful airplane. *** The company has made two major design changes over the last few months which are interesting and worthy of attention. (1) The wing flaps are gone, ostensibly to “simplify” pilot operations. Company spokesfolk say they weren’t getting sufficient benefit from the flaps to justify their weight and complexity. (2) A desire to work in more spin resistance has led to airframe tweaks, including wing cuffs to lower the stall speed of the composite carbon fiber SLSA. *** I and others had wondered, after our first looks at that streamlined profile when the A5 debuted a couple years back, how Icon was ever going to get stall speed below the 45-knot minimum, even with flaps.
ICONographic Marketing
I thought I’d share a couple interesting videos recently posted on the Icon Aircraft website. There’s a multimedia gallery of high-profile, appealing eye candy, including YouTube videos chronicling various aspects of the ongoing test program for the company’s A5 amphibian S-LSA. *** Two I found particularly interesting: a stall sequence and a potpourri of recent flight test ops. *** First, the stall sequence shows the classic tufted airflow indicators taped to the wing to demonstrate inflight stall progression from the root outward. *** Watch the tufts near the root begin to wiggle and change direction first, demonstrating loss of lift. Then see the stall move outward from the root and along the trailing edge. To my eye, it seems like the middle of the wing completely stalls before the root. I’d like to know about the aerodynamic significance of that, and why the wing doesn’t stall more classically at the root first.
Neiman Marcus: “Icon A5 Is Top Gift!”
Right in line with Icon’s high-viz marketing push for its A5 amphib LSA comes the announcement that iconic big-ticket shopping purveyor Nieman Marcus has the futuristic waterplane as the number one (and priciest) fantasy gift in its 2009 Christmas Book. *** The Icon is currently in extensive flight testing at Tehachapi, Ca, one of the soaring meccas of the west but also near Lake Isabella, so both the land and water chops of the A5 can be thoroughly wrung out. *** An interesting sidenote mentioned in the piece: Matthew Gionta, ICON’s chief technical officer, is quoted as saying 33% of the A5’s current customer base has “never flown before.” *** That’s a testimony to the vision of the company’s founder, Kirk Hawkins, who believes the ICON will bring new pilots to aviation with its glossy marketing of the A5 as a kind of flying jet-ski you can easily trailer to your holiday getaways.
CEO Makes ICONic Flight
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.
Icon’s A5 Flies! Check the YouTube Video
I’ve rarely promoted watching a YouTube video in a blog post. And this obviously isn’t the first SLSA (candidate) to make a first flight. But I’d repeat this many times if all first flights were as well documented as the first flight of the Icon A5 LSA seaplane. *** The L.A. company has shown unusual levels of professionalism and showmanship. So their creation of a quality video for a first flight comes as little surprise. *** Icon engineering team member Jon Karkow made the first flight on Wednesday, July 9th. Beside his engineering duties, Jon is an accomplished test pilot with a slate of first flights including the late Steve Fossett’s GlobalFlyer from Scaled Composites. *** “Everything went as well as an initial test flight possibly could go; so I was very pleased,” said Karkow. “The aircraft flew exceptionally well and met or exceeded our design expectations.
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.
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