Icon Aircraft has made a splash, literally, at Sun ’n’ Fun 2016. The company has one of the most glamorous stands on the flightline, showing off production Serial Number 1 of its A5 single-engine amphibious light sport aircraft line. Communications specialist Brian Manning reiterated that the Icon A5 is just the beginning for the company, which has been promising the industry for nearly a decade that its amphib will be a game-changing light sport airplane.
“But 2016, this is the year,” Manning told AIN on the opening day of the airshow. “We will begin making customer deliveries of aircraft in May, and we expect to deliver 175 aircraft by the end of 2016.”
The company has recently been criticized for its more-than-40-page sales contract. Manning explained, “We are trying to manage liability, and we’ll control it through these sales contracts, as well as through the overall safety of the aircraft.”
Serial Number 1 is an EAA Young Eagles aircraft and, once delivered, it was handed back to the company for a year of demos and shows. It now has 298 hours on its airframe.
Meanwhile the company is ramping up its manufacturing in Vacaville, Calif., in nearly 300,000 sq ft at the Nut Tree Airport. It is also ramping up its flight instruction engine, and has recently started a beta program, using Icon employees as sample flight students. Manning said it is averaging around 30 hours for students to be comfortable in the amphibious aircraft. (A typical sport pilot flight program requires a minimum of 20 hours of flight training.)