FAA Clarifies Function, Purpose Of NOTAMs - AVweb

News Discussion
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The FAA has issued new guidance to airports on issuing NOTAMs it says is intended to help pilots navigate them easier and more accurately. The Advisory Circular was issued on May 25 but the agency publicized it over the weekend. The overall intent appears to be to clean up all the expired, inaccurate and confusing NOTAMs clogging the system and ensuring those that do get published serve the intended purpose. “This AC provides guidance on using the NOTAM system for airport condition reporting and procedures used to describe, format, and disseminate information on unanticipated or temporary changes to components of, or hazards in, the National Airspace System (NAS),” the AC says.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/faa-clarifies-function-purpose-of-notams
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What amazes me is Icon is another example of aircraft design, certification, and manufacturing that has no conception of development / manufacturing cost, ROI, and an understanding of the aviation market they insist they are trying to serve.

Where in the world is this kind of company leadership ineptness coming from? And why does it congregate, propagate, continue, and thrive in aviation? I cannot think of any other corporate venture that any investor would actually pay for this type of company leadership…if you can call it leadership at all.

It seems like aviation has self-styled visionary people coming from somewhere whose background and expertise has no bearing regarding the realities of flying. Yet, there are investors who seem to flock to these aviation promise-makers offering enough money to convince an increasingly skeptical US pilot population to at least put a little dough down in the form of a deposit. Certified aviation seems to be the only market that measures itself by the number of deposits rather than airplanes being delivered.

I find it amusing that they put an Icon A5 in a Lambo showroom…or other high end super-car dealerships. These buyers don’t buy these to drive. They end up in garages with car covers on them or are trailer queens for occasional car shows. They are $200-400k status symbols. Most of those cars demand a professional driver to realize their performance potential. But these buyers own them not for performance use but for show. Is this the kind person who will invest the time, money, and most importantly, the dedication to become a proficient pilot?

If a visionary cannot bring a $80K airplane to market profitably, the market ,upward price wise, is already saturated. Plenty of $125-250K airplanes to pick from…LSA to back-country types. Want 4 place? $400-600K. Want the wheels to disappear with a serious 4 place traveler…$600-$1 million is the entry price to scratch that itch.

Out of a country of 330 million or so…with the most freedom to fly…only about a 1,000 people a year in total want to buy a certified piston single no matter if it is something you can land on water, aviate with no medical, or a fly high and go fast cross country machine.

What these visionaries need is an education by Van’s, Kitfox, Just Aircraft, Aviat, Cubcrafters, etc. on what the aviation consumer really wants. And maybe a pilot’s license, too. Cirrus, Piper, and Textron can only collectively dream of selling what Van’s has already done, and continues to do.

There is truly an a-- for every seat. In the aviation world, it is the Chinese government/military/consortium. Icon is just another of several aviation companies who could not stay solvent without Chinese investment and eventual ownership. Mao to the aviation rescue.

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Actually, I was in the 3rd camp of negative opinions; the ones who did NOT like a manufacture had the nerve to demanded that a buyer sign an onerous agreement on what they could do with it. The plane is good, but it’s just not super-wow-great enough for me to sign away my dignity to get it.

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Good commentary.

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“ overestimating demand and underestimating production economics.” Icon’s financial tsunami.

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Damn Jim, you hit the nail on the head in just about every respect. For the life of me I could not understand how Icon has lasted half as long as it already has. It has been nothing short of pure mental anguish to watch Icon try to operate and build an airplane. My head hurts just thinking about it. Most guys in their garages have a better approach and business plan. Very nice complete and concise commentary Jim.
Oh, by the way Paul, Icon doesn’t have a snowballs chance in hell of surviving. That nail was hammered home before the first deposit was ever taken. It’s truly amazing it has lasted this long.

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I think part of the problem is the typical way to get a large program financed is to “go big or go home”. The dreamers are forced to over-hype their ideas to investors because, all too often, due-diligence is replaced by “gut feel”, and investment communities are willing to believe the hype and pour scads of money into a project without asking the basic questions or providing at least some balanced guidance. I almost was going to write that it’s an American dysfunctional characteristic, but that wouldn’t be fair. As noted above there are plenty of American companies that make good aircraft in small numbers and are getting along well. It seems that the bigger the hype for a new product or idea, the more likely it will fail, and fail big. Flying cars, anyone?

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You would have thunk that the original principals – coming from the Scaled Skunk Works at Mojave – would have had better sense than they did with respect to designing for manufacturing ease / low cost vs. slick looks and overhyped fun. Their early mindsets ARE therefore seriously suspect. What they ultimately created does LOOK interesting but that’s where it all stops. The price jump after they realized what they had done is reflective of poor management, as Jim H opines. The early Icon booths at Airventure were – likewise – ridiculous. If they’d ONLY had brought in some dancing girls. What WERE they thinking?

The SeaRey Elite with its 914iS WOULD be a better choice at lower cost. I hear they’re testing a 915iS, too. Every time I drive past the factory in Tavares, I have to force myself to keep going because I know I might leave with one if I stop.

As I have often said, if you want to sell an airplane, it has to either go fast, go far, carry a good load, have room to carry things or have the wow/fun factor. I’d add having a realistic price factored against how many of the previous five performance categories the machine offers. The Icon offers only fun factor … and then for a very limited subset of the pilot population. I wonder how many people have SES ratings or need / care to obtain one? Now add the problem that the Company might not be around to provide after the sale logistical support and a price tag that isn’t competitive and you have a recipe for abject failure.

I laughed at Jim H’s comment about what Lambo buyers do with them. I have a red Z06 that travels between my hangar and house and occasional car shows. 500 miles / year would be a lot of miles. I get as much joy by looking at it or hearing it scream as I do driving it. And I’d NEVER leave it sitting in a parking lot unattended. NEVER! My wife doesn’t “get” that … but I do.

Light Sport airplanes now have an additional potential threat … MOSAIC. The predominant draw to LSA was the no medical issue for those of us that worry about such things. If weight increases and type expansion happens and I can fly my C172 under MOSAIC without a medical or continue to fly under BasicMed … why do I need an LSA? For the price of the lowest cost reasonable LSA, I can outfit my 172 with the latest avionics gadgets and have money left over to do other things. For $400K, I could buy a NEW 172. One thing is for sure … if I had $400K to burn … I wouldn’t be buying an Icon A5. Anyone without an airplane can buy a good used C172M for under $100K handsomely outfitted. And if MOSAIC allows construction of a kit airplane by subcontractors … small entrepreneurs will be popping out of the woodwork eager to provide same at low cost.

It’s not a question of when Icon fails … but when. I don’t wish to see their demise but reality IS reality. Even the Chinese have limits, not only of money but of patience. I’m sure there’s a flying car company or a people moving drone company out there that needs some corporate “expertise.” If I were one of the principals, I’d have a drawer full of resumes already printed up and waiting.

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I’m one of the many hundreds of initial deposit holders who for years waited and watched and hoped that ICON would deliver what they promised: a simple, fun, safe and sexy little flying boat, at an LSA price. As a lifelong pilot with a slew of ratings, I even went through ICON’s flight training program in CA (it was well run and a ton of fun) before I reluctantly canceled my order. While the price hikes and changing personal circumstances were factors, in the end it was the paltry useful load and marginal power that convinced me to back away from purchasing one.

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Put the Rotax 915is in the Icon, and you’ll have a winner.

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Yabbiit … then the price would go up y $100K AND the useful load / endurance would go down further. The 915iS on something else … will likely turn out to be a winner ?

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I like what Paul Bertorelli wrote in this article and his view point, as much as I would like to see the A5 succeed, I would have to agree that it might not make it unless a huge number of people with disposable income show up.

I watched Jay Leno take a flight in one on his car show but even Jay didn’t seem to be too interested in it.

I wonder if he feels the same way about other aircraft that didn’t make the cut - i.e., the Extra 400.

I test flew DEKAF when it first came out and it easily outperformed the only other aircraft similar to it, (PA46, P210), but for whatever reason did not make it, does Paul have any opinions about the E400?

Thanks Pat

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After reading the Icon article and these responses I went out and hugged my 1946 Cessna 120. Again!

John K

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Ignoring for a moment all of the other significant issues already mentioned, they have a fundamental marketing problem:

  1. Very few certificated pilots would actually buy one because the A5 is completely useless as a real airplane where you want to go places faster than a car and actually carry some stuff.

  2. Very few non-pilots would actually buy one as an occasional use “toy” because the A5 is way too expensive and requires a lot of time/training/contract signing to get in the air.

I give them a year or two at best.

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John K., good idea. I’ll do the same. Also, I’ll stop complaining about maintenance costs on my 1967 and 1978 C172s.

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GA flourished when regular Joe’s could afford to buy an airplane. The highest production year for C 172’s was 1979 when they made more than 3000. In today’s dollars the 1979 C 172 went for $118,000. Today a C 172 cost $ 415,000…

It was practical useful and affordable. There will never be high volume production of specialty toy airplanes, the ICON model can never work

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Extra 400 ! I haven’t thought of THAT airplane in years. What did happen to it ?

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You should sell T-shirts that SAY that, John

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There’s a flip side to the conundrum we’re discussing.

One of the better ideas Icon had was that they were going to market the thing to non-pilots who wanted a fun machine and didn’t know a stick from a rudder. Even at their early introductory price, it was too expensive but – who knows – maybe it’d have worked? So the pilot side is an issue, too. I guess Icon thought they’d just train non pilots to fly the thing on water in 20 hours and they’d run up in droves and buy them in bulk? Who’s on first ??

Just in the last couple of weeks, I noted on my home aviation radio set to local Unicom that there was a lot of Skycatcher activity at my airport near Oshkosh. I wondered what was going on. At the FBO, I got to talking to one of the pilots, a 60ish guy who told me that he had always wanted to fly, was now retired and was attending an EAA Light Sport accelerated training activity at Oshkosh. The EAA had brought in two CFI’s who were planned to each train two student over the dedicated short period. For $10K including lodging, the aspirants would pop out the other side a certificated LSA pilot. Well, guess what … the EAA couldn’t find four students so each CFI only had one student. $10K isn’t chump change but it isn’t a fortune, either. The guy I talked to was obviously well heeled enough to justify it in his mind. My point is that if EAA couldn’t attract four people for such a dedicated and well planned out training session … it says MUCH! And, of course, twenty somethings wouldn’t be able to afford such training, either. As I remember Icon’s story, that’s the exact target population they were going after … 20 to 30 year old non pilots. So how the heck were they gonna afford the airplane if they can’t afford the training?

BTW: The guy had landed because he was nervous about the winds that had picked up. I “jacked” the guy up a couple of feet and complimented him on achieving his life bucket list item and told him he was developing aeronautical decision making; that he did the right thing. He was ready to run out and buy an LSA. I told him to – instead – keep training, get his private and buy a “real” airplane. He agreed that was a good plan.

And no PFD !! I thought Genesah was a professional chief pilot? That’s what Jamie Beckett says …

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Van’s RV-7 Quickbuild Kit $38,845, IO-360-M1B, $27,700, 1500 man hours build time @ $50.00 hr = $75,000,
Hartzell C/S prop $8275, Dynon HDX SkyView panel with ADS-B IN/OUT $$16,390, Emag option $1200, Paint base white plus two colors $12,500, $10,000 for Wheels, tires, brakes, hardware, spinner, wire , hoses, etc…total $189,910.

Now add another $100,000 pure profit…$289,910

All of these above prices are not wholesale prices. All of those prices allows for each manufacturer to be profitable. Total labor costs are variable depending on where the airplane is assembled. So, inflating the labor to $100 per hour would add another $75K to the equation.

To me it is clear that with improved FAA regulation, this kind of well proven airplane could be assembled from the existing supply chain. At 2019 prices, one could purchase a brand new RV-7, with a glass panel including all engine monitoring, auto pilot, ADS-B compliant, fuel injection with electronic ignition, 180HP including C/S prop, 2 place 170kt, aerobatic airplane with a 500 mile range, and a good useful load, completely painted for under $300,000…and making a good profit on each airplane. I believe build times could be reduced to 1,000 man hours on an assembly line style process over time. If regulations would allow this kind of airplane, prices would further drop as competing companies would enter the market and refine the build process. The home builder could still construct his and another less inclined customer could have someone else do it. Van’s is already doing this with the RV-12 series in house under LSA rules.

I do not want aviation companies to fail. There are practical solutions to the $400,000 172 and the $900,000 G36 / SR-22 's. But airplanes require pilots no matter how affordable they can become. Somehow, flying has to become more appealing, more accessible, with flight training designed that is realistically attainable for those bitten by the aviation bug. But no matter how it happened, each one of us pilots where infected with a rare, incurable disease called flying…not as a spectator, but as pilot in command.

Proportionally, flying as pilot in command has never had a mass appeal. Flying in a large aerial conveyance has been embraced and expected by the masses. So, we in aviation who have chosen to become the pilot rather than the passenger, are relatively rare. This is why the flying car will never really happen even if regulations and technology permit it. The average person does not want to accept the responsibility, take the time and energy to successfully complete pilot training, to safely participate in the three dimensional world. It’s the three dimensional part that separates aviation from any other hobby, past-time, or career. It cannot be tamed for the masses.

We pilots choose to launch into the 3D world and spent considerable time, energy, money to get to where we can do that when we choose. Whatever the circumstances that created this attraction to flying has not been a cookie-cutter experience for any one of us. To think anyone can make flying a cookie-cutter experience comes from folks who have never done what we have already accomplished. Like the Harley-Davidson T-shirt says…If I have to explain it, you would not understand.

What we are debating is, how many airplanes need to be built to satisfy the demand from a small portion of the US population. While that is going on, I will go to the airport, inspired by John K., and go hug my airplane…and if I see his 120, I may embrace that one too.