Let the production begin! This, um … iconic company in the LSA space has been brewing for a long time, long enough that some aviators have been grumbling, wondering if Icon is “for real.” Today, the company announced that a week ago on June 11th, they successfully completed their FAA audit. That opens the door to serial production of a reported 1,250 orders as announced earlier this year.
In addition, some media persons including yours truly, will get to fly the machine during Oshosh in just a few weeks. I’m excited to see how this well-promoted, long-in-development aircraft flies.
“The successful completion of the FAA’s audit of the A5 is one of the most critical milestones in our company’s history,” said Icon Aircraft CEO and Founder Kirk Hawkins. “This means that after years of intense development by the Icon team, our customers and the media will finally get a chance to experience the A5 firsthand and form their own opinion.

According to a report in the North Bay (San Francisco) Business Journal, Icon will build its first 20 A5 LSA seaplanes before the end of 2015. Certainly in the LSA space, this can best be described as “much-anticipated event.”
At an annual meeting of the Solano Economic Development Corporation, the Business Journal reported, guest speaker Kirk Hawkins of Icon provided an update on the production of the A5. “The first Icon Aircraft production planes are currently undergoing flight verification testing, and 20 of our A5 aircraft are scheduled to roll off the Vacaville production floor in 2015,” the Journal quoted. They added that Hawkins said production will follow the completion of construction at the facility in August, 2015.
Earlier the California company reported taking more than 1,250 aircraft deposits, which they said represents nearly $300 million in backlog. “By comparison, Tesla Motors had approximately $100 million in order backlog just prior to its production start,” Hawkins noted to the business development group.

On this website, we zoom around the world following Light-Sport Aircraft, from near the Arctic Circle — you know, where Santa and the wee elves are pulling some heavy overtime about now — to the warm balminess of Southern California. I know of what I write, having once lived in the snow belt and now hanging with the family in Palm Springs, California for Christmas. It seems everywhere I look I see LSA seaplanes in sea trials and this is happening in the dead of winter.
Why be surprised? Perhaps you’ve noticed boat shows happen in the winter months. When living in Minnesota, I was always amazed that boat shows were held in January and February, a time of year when it would be months before the ice melted from the state’s 10,000 lakes to allow use of those boats. Yet this is when people were shopping, I suppose anticipating an upcoming season of boating fun.

One of the most-watched Light-Sport Aircraft is Icon’s A5 seaplane. Through savvy marketing and a splashy display and events at AirVenture (the only show where Icon Aircraft regularly exhibits), the company has clearly wowed potential buyers, the general aviation public, plus media journalists and photographers. ByDanJohnson.com has followed Icon since the beginning, actually even before the beginning, so we are pleased to continue our updates on their progress. Most observers see that it has been a long road. I first met CEO Kirk Hawkins back on the EAA Sport Pilot Tour in 2005 when he was — as he put it himself — “one guy with a business card.” Whatever you may think about the road long traveled, Kirk has taken his company from nowhere to one of the most closely tracked enterprises in the entire LSA space worldwide. His training for this lengthy exercise began at California’s respected Stanford University Graduate School of Business where he learned the Silicon Valley way to make a big impact … what the tech industry likes to call “creative destruction,” leaving behind the old ways of methodically introducing products and embracing the Internet style of taking bold leaps forward.