Kirk Hawkins & Steen Strand on Designing the ICON A5

i want one

Looks like a lot of fun. It will be interesting to see if it will hold the promise to open up the air for "sports pilots". The risk that I can see is that many "sports pilots" will overestimate their actual capabilities as aviators and take on challenging situations that they won't be able to handle. Sadly, unlike modern road and water vehicles, the likelihood that the airframe will save these people from themselves is probably slim to nil... did anybody test what the airframe looks like after a crash? Does it survive in any better condition than the typical competitor products that these guys accuse of being "boring"? Just a thought.

why no more comments since last dec? I would really like to hear Rob pushback more in response to GrahamB--not because I'm rooting for ICON's failure, but for exactly the opposite. But the media and public in general must know what regulatory hurdles must be addressed (by ICON, it's distribution network, and the various kinds of landing/launching sites) so that we can begin to expose and scrutinize the ways & means in which the bureaucratic regulatory bodies destroy (or, at least, limit) innovation and wealth-creation. Moreover, and just as importantly, we must also anticipate the sundry ways in which some of those same bureaucratic governmental agencies plus others will implement and enforce coercive, intrusive, overbearing laws that make it very difficult (if not impossible) for potential consumer-pilots and current pilots to purchase and use this spectacular miracle in modern engineering. Remember, only the spontaneous/emergent order created by individuals who are free to engage in exchanges, without coercive interference (or threat thereof) by an uninvited third-party, can create and/or permit most desirable outcomes for all. Countless times, beginning at least a half-century ago, empirical evidence reported in peer-reviewed journals has clearly demonstrated that regulations do not (in fact, CANNOT) provide net positive outcomes; and most of the time the regulations harm those whom the government purports to be helping. I'd watch out for the makers of small passenger airplanes and those little helicopter/parasailing-looking machines. They'll feel threatened by this new technology and the new market it will spawn. It could be just like when the candle-maker industry petitioned the French government to implement regulations controlling the French citizens' "overuse" of sunlight by leaving window-shades/curtains open during the daytime. The horse-and-buggy industry viciously attacked the emerging automobile industry on the grounds that the millions of displaced workers would go starving in the streets. Whether on a grand scale or among a relatively few (rationally) self-interested stakeholders, look for both big-government progressive-liberals and self-declared (yet hypocritical) "conservative Republicans" to align themselves with various different stakeholders involved in and/or impacted by this emerging market. Nothing positive could possibly come from any of it. Let's stand up to them for once; let's tell them to "shut-up" or we'll fire them; let's remind them that they cannot protect consumers--only watch-dog groups, good media, privately-held certifiers (like U.L.), and the use of/threat of civil litigation can actually help to protect us; let's allow the first phase of the flying-cars industrial revolution to "get off of the ground"!

GrahamB, You may be right. Rob

hi! at the end it says that seems you can preorder now but production will start in 2011

Rob, Your comments remind me of the "expert" who proclaimed that there was probably a market for as many as 8 computers! The company already has 325 deposits paid! I think it will be vert successful.

Love the described tension between engineer and industrial designer. Like the tension between male and female, it fosters creation!

It's a marvelous machine. Is it experimental yet? Is it on sale anywhere? Congratulations. Marcelo Verdugo from Chile

Beautiful! What a team. You guys appear to be a case study of innovation excellence and are certainly inspirational. May good fortune rain down on you all, you deserve it. Now for me, how to raise the dosh? Non-Pilot 'Brad' from New Zealand.

Very innovative & exciting, and I'd love to have one. As a licensed land and seaplane pilot, however, I think the difficulties in popularizing this amphibian in the target audience (upscale sports enthusiasts) and in the target environment (recreational waterways) will be very limiting. The existing financial and regulatory environment for airplanes is becoming more restrictive and not less; and this new flashy toy crosses directly into that well protected and difficult environment as soon as it leaves the ground. Good Luck! I'll be watching with interest.