Since it combines the snobbery of a Maserati with the noise/annoyance of a sport motorcycle, then owning one is not going to make you loved by your neighbors. It’s “segment” is the nouveau riche who spend money on what they think that the well-to-do people would spend money on. So yea, flight instructors with full length tattoos won’t make the buyers wince.
“…there are 373 individually laid up carbon-fiber parts.”
“…in the existing A5, we’re trying to do a lot of reverse engineering to make the product more manufacturable without compromising quality.”
Well, not really “reverse” engineering – they already know how it’s built. What they’re doing is RE-engineering, with an emphasis on DFMA (Design for Manufacture and Assembly). Good old Boothroyd-Dewhurst, which works for both large and small lots.
No matter how well you execute a flawed concept – or design – the outcome will be fundamentally flawed.
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Sorry about the numbers, I should never post when 91.17
I can’t believe I read the whole thing, twice. Donate all to EAA.
the ICON will not sell well until it has some utility. It basically needs to carry two full sized people and stuff and 3 to 4 hours of fuel thus at least 500 lbs of peopl and 4 hours of fuel. then it will be more than a toy for Saturday use in good weather. I think it is well done and attractive but owning and flying a seabee and having experienced its capability, the Seabee carries 4 people and stuff with 4 hours of fuel and most importantly it is able to handle 3 ft waves. There is no way I would spend my money on on an ICON. in addition, at that gross weight it should have at least 150 hp in order to handle the weight and hot conditions.
so to be a salable airplane in volume it needs much more capability than the current regulations allow.
Tell your prospective customers it’s 3D-printed and electric powered. Should result in a spike in interest in the tech-for-tech’s-sake part of the target demographic.
there are serious competitors out there. the super petrel is a really nice aircraft with as good as or better performance at 1/2 the price and for an aircraft that doe the job well and is the low cost leader the Sea Ray is #1 thus the ICON is aimed only at the high end recreational market and that is a very small market.
if they could up the gross weight of the ICON so it could carry two full size people and luggage plus 4 hours of fuel and give it good performance with 150 Hp they would have an aircraft that is worth the price as a small utility amphibian. that is a market where the utility would be proportional to the price.
I agree fully with the comments above. It is a stylish plane with little utility, just a toy for the rich.
In these Corona times, I would be very surprised if they sell a single one, thus the chances that they are still around a year from now are slim.
It’s a new world out there, with drastically different paying rules, where Maserati will probably sell better than the Icon, but not even that is granted.
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@Tord E.,
Maserati sells more units in a month that Icon has in its history.
Underpowered. Seaplanes, hmm. They haven’t been exciting since the Schneider cup racers a century ago. Those were real machines. Like the M.C. 72 setting a record of 440mph. Ever since then, seaplanes have been slow, plodding, cumbersome contraptions for the most part. And here’s another example. Probably best suited for getting to fishing locations fast. In the Icon one could stand up and use a casting rod, but where to put the fish… It needs a live well somewhere outside the cockpit.