Flying the ICON A5 at Jack Brown’s Seaplane Base | Glassy Water Landing and Step Taxi

the one thing that really stands out about our seaplane base is just the rich history as a fleet here we've been operating uh j3 cubs kind of since the beginning we've been excited to diversify the fleet with the addition of the a5 a really nice thing with these c-wings they can actually be used to assist a little drag on the inboard side of the turn this is much easier to teach a glassy water landing in than anything else yeah i love how you talked about using the drag on the c-wings i'll actually go into a step taxi and i'll put you can see i have right stick almost fully deflected we've been specializing in making new seaplane pilots since 1963. and over the years you've learned what works what doesn't work and often times that wisdom and that been there done that gets trickled down through the generations [Music] as an icon flight training partner we have three iaffys on staff here we're also able to offer factory training to new icon owners and to the general public just looking to add a seaplane rating at the sport the private and the commercial level leading up to my first flight in the a5 i'd flown various types of you know not only float planes but also monohull seaplanes to be honest before i first flew the icon i was a little bit of a skeptic just because you you know what you know oftentimes going from a float plane to a monohull you can run into some negative transfers such as landing two nodes high they may have a tendency to porpoise more than a float plane would what i really have grown to fall in love with with the icon is the c-wings you get that same stability without the i guess weighing on your mind of hey am i dragging this sponson at too great in airspeed so i love the the flexibility that you get with the c-wing and you can actually assist a step turn if you need to hi my name is andy jackson i am the manager of the flight training network for icon aircraft for all our training partners icon authorized flight instructors and flight schools icon doesn't just train them and and stay out of the relationship after that we do have uh annual standardization flights and we like to come back and and make sure that we're providing them the resources they need for owners so today i'm here to give a standardization flight and basically we're going to go up and make sure they're flying uh the icon the way that the company has trained us to train instructors to train owners so we're gonna go up and have some fun and we're gonna go do some of the maneuvers that are specific and unique to the icon [Music] now one of the other differences too going from a a monohull you can see how low we're sitting in the water yeah you can dangle your your fingers on the water from from displacement here uh whereas a float plane you're gonna be you know way up there you'd make a splash if you fell out right so when you are turning the aircraft uh in a monohall a seaplane your cg is generally much much lower um giving you uh i'd say kind of the feel of turning in a sports car uh versus turning in an suv you also have another force that's acting on you depending on the day but of course that's the wind centrifugal force is always going to be towards the outside turn so this turn that we're going to start with the upwind to downwind you're going to have some tropical force to the outside of the turn in this case upwind so the wind the centrifugal force will counteract each other and make this airplane even more stable okay here we go so it sticks back throttle's coming in all right so we'll see the nose come up much like it does in a boat it'll kind of peek out in that plow attitude you see that angle starting to look very similar to the way it was prior to adding power so as that nose comes down power will come back we're looking for about 4 000 rpm is a great place to start if you've got any pitching moment on the nose called purposey little back pressure is all it takes to fix that all right we're gonna make a right turn we're clear to the right a really nice thing with these c wings they can actually be used to assist a little drag on the inboard side of the turn actually increase your turning authority very nice hey mind if i take it you got it i'd like instructors to come away with a feel for it kind of the limit of a turn you talked about the danger of getting that uh cetrogel force with the upwind so what does it feel like when the plane is getting on the the edge of that turn envelope and uh i i liken it too i'm glad you brought up boats because if anybody's ever been in a boat that's got a tight turn race you feel the seat of your pants start to slide to one side of the boat maybe like you're leaning a little bit so i really like to take the opportunity on these light wind days to kind of get some speed up and then i'll do a nice aggressive rudder turn and let them feel and just having a little more experience the plane kind of right when it's about to grip or release that grip on the water so here we're coming near the shore and i want to make a little bit more aggressive turn so i'm going to add some power and i'm just really slowly more and more right rudder and now you can feel that side load increasing to the point where the hull feels like it wants to skip cyber and if that happens i just teach them straighten it out with the opposite rudder or go idle either one will fix your problem okay but i'd like for instructors to see that because we want to encourage our customers to go have fun and treat it like a boat on the water but we also want to recognize hey that's that's a sensation that could lead to worse things if not corrected right exactly exactly and then for owners kind of just to demonstrate the safety i love how you talked about using the drag on the c-wings i'll actually go into a step taxi and i'll put you can see i have right stick almost fully deflected yeah and we're not dipping a wingtip the c-wings are so buoyant they're really going to keep the thing stable even if you accidentally cross control it in the wrong direction as far as the not having sponsors to worry about um honestly when i'm doing step taxi in another monohull that has sponsons that is i'm probably fixating more on the sponsons than i should be yeah and not just having fun doing what i'm doing so i think that this design of the c-wing really helps you experience step taxi the way it should be yeah absolutely my name is ken allen i'm a icon authorized flight instructor here at jack brown's been flying for about 35 years been teaching at jack brown's in the seaplane for right at three years now when ben approached me and was talking about partnering up with icon to do some icon training i kind of got excited because i've seen the airplane in magazines and on youtube videos and always thought it was a really cool airplane probably never have a chance to fly it [Music] alright so we're just going to come over this little peninsula right here we're not going to go to the point we're going to bring it back a little bit and here again we're going to land on water so our gear is going to be up and what we're teaching is like when you're beaming your lvr that's when you're going to do your checks all right so the gear is going to be up the flaps are going to come down we're at the flap speed water rotors are up [Music] so we want to make sure our pitch is set prior to the lvr just hold that yellow line pitch power and patience [Music] beautiful there we go this is much easier to teach a glassy water landing in than anything else because on the cub it's a sight picture and they get that sight picture wrong all the time yeah here it's so simple like just put it right there put it on the put it on the yellow and leave it there and just get your power up you know and just be patient [Music] so we've done duels people just coming in for fun flights we've had a txl course we have had a couple that have gotten their commercial add-on or their private add-on in the icon a5 and i got to tell you the duals are definitely the most fun because it's people that they've seen the icon they may have never touched it they've seen it at air shows they've seen people flying it and so them actually getting to experience it is just really neat to see i don't think anybody walks away without a smile on their face and what i've found in this airplane is because it's so easy to fly literally you can fly with two fingers having jack browns join the network was really special for us as we got to link up with one of the most known names in seaplane flying and icon's mission of course is to get as many people flying seaplanes as possible and i don't think we could touch any more customers than we are using jack brown and their resources and and their popularity response we've been gaining from students and and customers alike has been overwhelmingly positive a lot of people have come here to train before in the past in a j3 or one of our other float planes and uh saw that we now have a icon a5 as a training option and they want to just get checked out in it or go out and just experience what a different site picture is going to be you know our instructors are grouped and mentored and i tell them that they're hired as psychologists that know how to fly so we really get to the root of the issue and that's what surprises most people in a in a quick uh course and just a a little amount of time they can getting a lot of wisdom and a lot of insight that's gonna lay a tremendous foundation for any seaplane or float plane flight that they they do after that [Music] all right very nice guys we're headed back you

Channel: ICON Aircraft

Views: 34,771

Keywords: iconaircrafta5, ICON, Aircraft, airplane, plane, amphibious, seaplane

Id: vwnStdoaZIg

Length: 10min 47sec (647 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 13 2021