Indepth Look at the Icon A5 and How the Company Has Retooled to Survive

[Music] everyone it's Paul Berta le reporting for Ave web you will recognize the airplane behind me it's the icon a5 and you probably also know that icon has been at their program for a little over ten years in this video we're gonna fly the airplane but we're also going to talk to a warrant Curie about how icon brings new customers in how it trains them including people who've never flown before and also people who want to transition from land airplanes to see points and the second video we'll take a look at the market conditions that icon is facing icon has two major training centers in the u.s. one in California and one on the East Coast at Peter o'night Airport in Tampa hard to imagine a better setup for this kind of training Peter o is right near downtown Tampa in the port's industrial sector just make a left turn off runway two two and you're right over a nice patch of water in Hillsborough Bay it's a perfect setup for training seaplane pilots in here's how I Khan does it okay so we're here at st. Petersburg at Peter a night airport won't tell us what the courses are that are available for people coming in you've got people who are purchasing airplanes you've got people who are transitioning and people who want to do a sport seaplane rating yeah great question Paul so the icon training facility here at Tampa as well as the one we have in Vacaville offers three main courses one is the sport pilot license those are for individuals who have not flown before and why not earn their sport pilot license and then we offer two other courses which are somewhat unique to icon and in some way and that's the transition from a land-based pilot so someone that has a single-engine land to get their icon certification and their light sport water endorsement and we also have a course that takes pilots who had their seaplane rating already and we teach them the difference it's basically a difference training it's it's maybe you know reminding them of the things they learned in their seaplane school as well as differences with the icon and so if I'm a new icon purchaser I just bought the airplane I'm coming learn to fly it how long will it take me so what sport pilot license if someone were to come to Tampa or Vacaville and and they really dedicate them socket themselves I would tell people you're probably looking at three weeks I would city mother nature and just the attitude the way they pick it up would definitely make a difference if they're doing that transition like a single-engine land pilot comes down that's typically a four day course where we do a ground school in six flights and then the shortest course is someone who already has received plane rating and that's a two day course where we do a ground school again reminders of things they learned previously differences with the icon and then we take them on three flights and you've got materials here which icon has developed tell me a little bit about what these do yeah and you know I'm really proud of what icon has developed be honest with you so so we have three main documents first as the course guide this includes all the three courses we talked about and it really walks a pilot through what their expectations are when they come to the flight training center here in Tampa or Vacaville we outline every day we outline every flight what we're going to talk about in ground school things they need to study ahead of time we'll discuss and then the particular procedures we'll do in that flight and again that's for the sport pilot license a transition for a land-based pilot or the seaplane pilot and then additionally what we have here is the sport pilot academics primarily for the sport pilot license because it goes through weather or it goes through airspace you know things that a pilot most pilots coming in here already know and then we have sections just dedicated to the transition courses you know how to operate in the water if you're just a land-based pilot what is a step taxi mean what's a plow turn mean not only what does it mean and why you use it and what conditions you use it in but actually how to do it in the icon itself so if I'm probably for our readers and viewers that the main area of interest is I've already got single-engine land or I've already got ribs I don't have a seaplane where I'm going to come do an icon how long will that take and what will it cost yeah so that and that is honestly Paul 75% of our people that come through here are those as that type of pilots and I will caveat my answer by saying it really depends on their currency and proficiency you know so we'll make the assumption someone's coming in with a lease some some recent currency in proficiency the flying so if they come in it's a four day course we spend the first morning going over a ground school again we talk about all the particularly water environment we'll still discuss our land-based operations how we land the aircraft on the water but we're really focusing keen on how we do our water operations and that's about a three hour course and then we have six flights and those six flights just like every other curriculum it goes from the basic building blocks of how to fly the aircraft how to land it on a normal water condition all the way into how we're going to beach it how you ramp it how you get to a dock and then as you know is your seaplane pilot of glassy water conditions more the the the challenging type of things you do in a seaplane and it's not the only way to do it you don't have to come here and you've got instructors across the country how's that perfect yeah and and again I'm proud of what we've developed so really over the last fourteen months we have developed 24 what we call icon authorized flight instructors so those are people that we qualify we make sure that they have the requisite amount of flight instruction hours and then we train them to not only teach people how to fly the icon but also how to do that you know the transition courses from the water based operations and those icon alloys flight instructors are everywhere from Southern California to northern Washington the boss and down in Miami and all the ways in between and we did that because really what we're focusing on is the clients who are across the nation right now who may not have the time or ability to come to Tampa or Vacaville we want to make sure that we're building an infrastructure to support the current clients and future clients and if I could add one thing and I know you know this important they're there to focus on the current clients because as we all know sometimes life gets in the way so you have an icon eighty five you've been flying it and whether it's a medical condition or just something in life keeps you out of the aircraft for a little bit I always encourage our clients fine that local icon authorized flight instructor and get current and proficient before you go out and enjoy your aircraft manufacturer provided training materials aren't anything new Justin did it for years but icon is different for focusing on the operating envelope the a5 will fly in specifically low altitude near obstacles and of course water lakes rivers and bays in a way the a5 is a throwback to older stick and rudder airplanes panel isn't loaded up with the usual acres of glass display but as more automotive like 4-minute won the training focus is on this gadget the a5 s angle of attack indicator to be accurate this isn't true angle of attack but a pressure differential instrument that implies a away note that the indicator pointer is a wing section and the gauge is marked with just three angles green white and yellow white angle is what's recommended for approaches and while icon kind of makes a big deal about the AOA indicator the training also introduces the idea of flying as an energy management exercise which of course it is the training material introduces the idea of sensing air speed through tactile factors like noise stick feel and you know looking out the window we're flying increasingly reduced to the abstraction of glass panels this is a refreshing change and also nuts the other kind of nuts you are after all both in an airplane and a boat and you're gonna have to tie it to adopt one day the a5 is travelerbill which is one of the original selling points in under three minutes the wings fold and stow in fixtures designed just for the purpose the horizontal stabilizer tips are removable to keep the airplanes width in a standard Lane this is the best thought-out wing fold design I've seen yet unique to the a5 or what Ikon calls water wings otherwise known as sponsons on the water you can stand on these for a little fishing or swimming and four feet dry boarding it's easy enough to just kneel on them and leave her into the cockpit even if the wing mounted can make sure what looked big for my flight demo I asked icon chief instructor janessa Duffy to demonstrate how she introduces a new would-be pilot to the a5 the training sticks strictly do the script and the script revolves around the icons extensive purchase contract that includes a detailed operating agreement this is designed to do two things limit icons illegal exposure from accidents and alert buyers to specific risks to avoid accidents in the first place there are 32 items on the list everything from pumping the bilge to rough water landings to weight and balance calculations the training will touch every one of those okay so for this exercise I'm the new guy I'm getting the demo so yep what will you tell me is so you know we're aligning with it their runway all our gauges are still good we're just verify our engine instruments our airspeed is alive we are going to rotate about 50 55 knots is what we're looking for there's 50 55 we're up and now we're gonna climb up at that white line again that's our Bui or best rate of climb once we're out of useable run away I will go gear up is coming up in transit and now it will show your up and laughs which way to do Peter - there's a training doctrine to focus on the AOA not the airspeed all of our training of the primary instrument a pile of money was spent on the a5 s aerodynamics and it shows if you've ever flown a bonanza you'll remember how naturally balanced the control forces feel well the icon is close to that with little of the twitchy lightness so many light sport airplanes have it takes only a small stab of trim to keep it on speed and pitch and display stick results in a few go that dance in two cycles or less and it settles nicely on the trimmed airspeed after power changes I did some rudder coordination exercises and found so little adverse yaw that hardly any rudder is needed of course you want to make sure that the coordinated interns and crosswind takeoff and landings both its aircraft you need very little rudder the only time I really use the rudders crossing takeoff and landing you know turns over say 30 to 45 degree banks of turn and maneuvering on the water go on right it's a pusher aircraft so we have a little less turning tendencies and also the rudders can't in about one degree to the right already so you just don't need a ton of rudder in this airplane the rudder or the vertical fin the rudder standard gross weight for a light-sport seaplane is fourteen hundred and thirty pounds that allows for the weight of the floats of the boat but the a5 is wavered to fifteen hundred and ten pounds the additional weight allows for a ballistic parachute and also for the higher weight of the airplane split incidents stall resistant wing the top of the wing is a forced of vortex generators and these keep the air stuck to the wings so roll control is positive right into the stall buffer and that's a post all you might if you keep holding it you'll get a little bit of a puppet you by habit I'd use rudder to hold the wings level but ailerons will do that in the a5 that's good because pilots get sloppy and rely on role during the stall not so good because it can make for lazy feet like many a Lesage the a5 has a gentle stall with a pronounced parachute mode with slight pitch oscillation it's supposed to be all but impossible to spin but from a thousand feet I didn't feel like trying and you're not supposed to do any of this stuff anyway item 20 in the operating agreement on the water the a5 comes into its own and so does icons emphasis on the angle of attack indicator I found after a couple of passes after I'd got used to the AOA and used it to set the sight picture I didn't need to refer to it or the airspeed indicator just as icons training material suggests and by the way with the windows out the airplane is surprisingly quiet with hardly any objectionable wind but plenty of tactile feel for speed changes that's doing part 2 these air deflectors you can hang your elbow out the window like a 1950's Street greaser fast on the steppe taxi terms are part of the fun of sea planes perhaps because of the a 5s water wings it resists role in these manoeuvres meaning the chance of inadvertently dipping in a wingtip is minimal so the turn doesn't require much opposite a neuron because of its higher weight and higher power loading the a5 isn't as fast off the water as other amphibs and LSA sea planes here's a comparison with the progressive Aerodyne 100 horsepower sea race sport and here's how that higher power loading translates into the water run for takeoff the a5 needs 840 feet compared to 550 feet for the Sea Ray initial rate of climb is comparable between the two at about 600 feet per minute the C ray of lead with a 115 horsepower turbocharged Rotax 914 does a lot better that 950 feet per minute it also blasts off the water in just four hundred and thirty feet not many light sport airplanes are load haulers least of all the amphibians on a gross weight of fifteen hundred and ten pounds the a5 useful load is four hundred and thirty pounds to one hundred and eighty pound people will have payload left for about eleven gallons of gas that's okay for a two-hour tune around the lake with VFR reserves but to two hundred pounders better make it a half hour the C Ray does a little better at four hundred and ninety pounds useful load the eighty-five wasn't intended to be fast nor a cross-country machine and it's neither cruise speed is about eighty five knots on four and a half gallons with reserve and still air it'll fly a little over three hundred miles Miami of Jacksonville for instance and three and a half hour drive runway landings are nothing special but again the AOA indicator both its function and placement at the top of the panel really helps nail the visual pitch attitude for the approach what we used to call flying the wing that's how an airplane like this should be flown in the a5 has the tools to do it when icon came out of the ground it proposed a training program to take unique advantage of the airplane safety features so as it delivered as a fall 2019 the a5 has been involved in at least six accidents two of them fatal by any measure that's not a great start with fleet hours totaling fourteen thousand and a little over one hundred airframes out there the numbers are too small to calculate a fair accident rate I covered how small numbers distort accident rate calculations in this video there's a link to it down in the summary section just as we did with a cirrus line we'll have to wait until 300 or 400 airframes are out to judge the airplane safety record fairly one of the fatals was the high-profile Roy Halladay crash in Florida no final cause on that one yet the first fatal involved a factory pilot who turned into this Cove off Lake Berryessa in California and collided with rising terrain this is just the sort of trap amphibian pilots have to learn to avoid because they're frequently operating at low altitudes near terrain and obstacles not airports with protected approach pass cleared of obstruction the progressive era dicey ray has many more airframes in service than icon and the accident record shows similar crashes at least one icon accident appears to be that common seaplane gotcha of landing on water with the wheels down this never turns out well and anyone who flies see planes will tell you it goes with the territory a certain number of seaplane drivers will eventually become u-boat commanders after more fleet experience icon may very well massage its training to avoid this kind of accident that's exactly what cirrus did but it took more than a decade look at icons record again in a few years meanwhile you can find a full report on icon in the October 2019 issue of aviation consumer and before I go one more thing let's have a look at where icon as a company fits into the overall market icons original idea was to appeal to potential owners outside traditional aviation markets such as motor and extreme sports the original business model envisioned high volume so the company built two factories to deliver on that one in Mexico and one in California but the airplane was long and gestation and if you've been following the news lately you've read that the company has had its ups and downs just as icon produced its 100th airplane this summer it announced a significant reorganization and downsizing at one point it had an order book extending to many hundreds of aircraft but it's now planning to produce just four or five airplanes a month so what happened one factor is price escalation when originally entered the a5 carried a sticker price of one hundred and thirty nine thousand dollars now the base price is three hundred and eighty five thousand dollars here's icons president Thomas veiners so obviously it has it has been hurting all right and this was the risk that the company took when we came out early with price tags at you know one thirty-nine to fifty nine one eight one thirty-nine 189 259 389 so at that point in time the data points were extremely weak around how much does it really cost to produce that airplane what does really take to bring it into serial production and companies Benford very optimistic and bullish that this could be done cheaper unfortunately airplane was not necessarily designed for manufacturability while the focus was strongly on the flight characteristics and the aesthetics of the airplane so now the the deposit holder is substantially substantially looking different than it looked before and and this is where you know I would put this under the same envelope of reality check right now let's not talk so much about deposits here at this point in time yes there's a data by a database of folks with interest there's a data database of deposit holders what the like likewise important or net new customers to us that are actually sometimes even quicker in making a decision because they are and they're also not undergoing that psychological sex I would call it where you were saying like today even if I have the money I was told years ago as it was cheaper and now it's so expensive this is not right I don't want to pay this anymore my cons original factory investment was scaled for much larger numbers but can it now downshift to something less here's Thomas veiners again I actually think we can and that's the reorg that we have just been initiating there's various factory the facilities themselves and you know both of our facilities have a capacity of around thousand aircraft a year now this is space and state translate into lease or rent and there's ways of mitigating there we're considering to sublease space we are considering to take on a couple of other projects that would require space and pay for themselves so that that's a fairly easy exercise I'd say the other one is equipment tooling which is also highly capital intensive and this has been and I think I said that in the call the last time we are having tooling to support like these 250 units a year so the good news here is scaling up which we know that's the flexibility we have now for capital investment wise is to a level of 250 doable we're not needing more cash that is good news at the same time obviously this this is capital that has been expense in the past and this is not fully utilized right now and Venus believes the original strategy to target people new to aviation was the correct one and will work but it will also take time to find those buyers and build that market you can find the full interview with Thomas Peters in the October 2019 issue of aviation consumer magazine along with a report on the airplane for a boy I'm Paul Burt or Ellie reporting thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: AVweb

Views: 238,714

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Id: u3vH-DZ_V_g

Length: 22min 25sec (1345 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 13 2019