Curious what you think looks awesome about the A5? Looks like an awesome traveling machine? Or looks like fun?

I had a chance to take up an A5 today at Jack Brown's. I gotta say, definitely a fun flying airplane.

Here are my three ups and three downs. The downs have nothing against Icon, more about me.

Ups - 1) Incredibly easy to fly. Love the stick. Hardest part for me was to remember to put the gear up for water landing. That seriously hurt my brain since I'm pretty neurotic about checking gear down on landing. 2) Visibility is amazing. Almost like being in an R22. You can see everything. And with the side windows removed, feels like you're outdoors. 3) Fit and finish is just super. I couldn't get over the heater control. Wish my Baron had that. An actual knob. Plus, a bilge pump in a plane? Just awesome...

Downs - 1) Taxing was painful at first. I have very limited castering nose wheel time (I have about an hour in a Tiger back in 1996). Eventually got the hang of it but initially staying on the yellow brick road sucked. 2) Keeping a good bit of power in for landing on the runway was different. Almost felt like a glassy water landing but on land. That will take me time to get used to. 3) No magneto check was just strange to me. I had to run the checklist a few times to understand what I was doing to check the engine.

All in all, it would be a fun plane to have in the stable. I'll definitely be taking more lessons.

The airplane aside, it's a shame what happened to that company which at one time had so much promise. I think it would make a good case-study of how not to run a start up. Oh well. Plenty like them in the history books but I followed this one pretty closely and had high hopes for them and the good, they could have done for general aviation.

You speak as if they’re dead; they’re still in business. Admittedly they are their own worst enemy, but they’re still making airplanes, which is a lot more than can be said for some other promising brands.

That is true and I still wish them the very best. I just wish they had lived up to their potential and what they so publicly claimed about themselves. I think it's a little late for that now, oh well.

JOOC, what did all of this fun cost?

JOOC, what did all of this fun cost?

I think what they claimed was unrealistic. They marketed it like a Jetski, to people with little or no flying experience. If it had actually sold like one, I’m afraid that the resulting carnage would have been worse than their relative lack of success.

Exactly. The crashes have probably been attributed to inexperienced pilots or cowboys, but I don't think I'd want to have a passenger in one, my weight notwithstanding.

From what I remember, it doesn’t have enough useful load for full fuel and two normal sized people, never mind heavy ones.

I also recall what seemed to be a preponderance of crashes that were the result of Icon company demo pilots being stupid.

Their chief engineer Jon Karkow somehow flew one of their new hires into a canyon they couldn't fly themselves out of. A really smart person doing something really stupid. 2 fatalities.

It was a real tragedy for the company and their reputation. The timing was such, that it may have been the straw that broke the camel's back. (So-to-speak.)

The problem I have with this plane is the price vs the utility. Too slow to be a x-country plane and too small to take waves over 18" or so.

I would rather have a flying RIB wing for $20k. True ultralight with nearly zero maintenance and a lot of utility. After that, I would probably do a SeaRay with a 915is for $125k if I wanted to go faster.

The Icon is cool, but not worth the $ IMO.

What's a "RIB wing"?

What's a "RIB wing"?

I think that the bulk of the technical problems stem from an insistence to make it an LSA. If they discarded the weight restriction, raised the HP and structural strength just a bit, they could make it into something more useful. It isn't like it needs to be a Widgeon, it just needs to be able to carry two normal sized people, a couple of weekend bags, and enough gas to go somewhere. Oh, and be able to handle a wave larger than a ripple; say, maybe something like a boat wake. I mean, who'd have thought those might be out there?