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Thread: Another ICON goes down

  1. #1

    Another ICON goes down

    What’s with these aircraft? Are they hard to fly?
    JAM
    Former MLB star Roy Halladay killed in plane crash - CBS News https://apple.news/Ah9bDojiDQQ2UHMw4m3pz0g

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    Sad news indeed.

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    Quote Originally Posted by jam0552@msn.com View Post
    ...Are they hard to fly?...
    All the evidence is to the contrary. Everybody raves about the handling.

    That said, Halladay is quoted as being enthusiastic about low flying, which is not necessarily hard, but is inherently very unforgiving. My father the flight instructor always said to stay three mistakes above the ground, and I don't think it ought to be any different for water.

    ...He took delivery of the A5 just last month and had expressed his joy at flying the plane on his social media accounts, recounting how he loved to fly it low over the water like a fighter plane...
    Bob Kuykendall
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    EAA Technical Counselor

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    A5 - "The Rich Man's Widow Maker"

    Quote Originally Posted by jam0552@msn.com View Post
    WhatÂ’s with these aircraft? Are they hard to fly?
    When a plane's test pilot is killed doing a familiarization flight with someone, one probably don't put the airplane in the "not very dangerous" category.

    It's not so much how "hard" the plane is to fly. It's more about how much the plane allows you to get into places you might kill yourself. [Sounds like the Icon chief test pilot flew into a cove and maybe piled up trying to turn around. Classic box canyon problem of the mountains, perhaps.]

    Since the first press release on this airplane I've been telling flying friends it will eventually earn the nickname "The Widow Maker".

    One could see where this aviation product idea was headed.

    The Icon is what you get when a Stanford MBA decides he's going to become the Steve Jobs of aviation. Come up with the really "cool" product and be seen as the visionary marketer.

    The only problem is he's putting a product on the market that he is marketing as an entry-level product. Which it is far from.

    "Forget the BB gun, kid. Here's a 357 Magnum. It's a gun just like the BB gun. Just heavier." It's pretty clear from Day One his market is the lawyer or doctor that decides having a really sexy airplane in the garage is even cooler than having a high end sports car in there. The wealthy non-pilot that is strolling through AirVenture and goes into the Icon Pavilion. After one of the daily "Dog & Pony" shows for the non-pilot, he walks out and says, "I'm learning to fly so I can get one of THOSE. They say it falls under the category called Sport Flying where the license is simpler to get."

    The big give-away of who it's really marketed towards is the "folding wings and running it around on a trailer" idea.

    "Keep it in your garage". Really?? Who is THAT feature supposed to appeal to but the compete non-aviation person? And Hawkins should know that. He started out in ultralights. 5 seconds of market research would have shown that the FIRST thing you wanted to get away from is having to trailer the damn ultralight to the airport. Recreational pilots don't want to trailer their airplane to the airport. They want to go to the airport, pull the airplane out and go FLY.

    The trailerable airplane has only one purpose. So you can stand next to it in the mall parking lot and have all the "little people" ooh and ahh about your "cool airplane" and you being a "cool pilot". Exactly the thing lots of busy, rich non-pilots would want to do. Be a "Big Hat, No Cattle" in aviation. [Cool airplane and no flying experience.]

    What experienced pilot really wants to have to trailer his plane to the airport to go fly for an hour?? Of risk the ...."Gee Mister, I'm sorry I ran into your cool little airplane you were trailering. I was texting my girlfriend. Hopefully you can fix what I broke with my fender with that Bondo stuff."]

    There is one reason why Icon fought to keep this thing in the Light Sport category. To remove the onerous hour and instructions requirements of a Private Pilot license. Which they know was largely the appeal of it. ["Gee, my non-pilot potential buyer, it has to be EASY to fly. The FAA even thinks so. That's why it's in the FAA's new Light Sport category where you need a fraction of the instruction of a Private Pilot certificate."]

    BIG mistake putting a juiced up seaplane in the hands of flying novices like Halliday. The only less restricted flying than ultralight flying is float flying [I say that after 44 yrs of GA, 40 of UL and 400 hrs on floats]. You could get yourself into all sorts of problems doing a lot of low flying in an ultralight. Except the speeds are so slow you don't end up in situations you regret getting into, like flying in a cove like the Icon test pilot and piling up trying to get out of it.

    You can spend oodles of time flying low on floats if you want to. Just like he was probably doing. But that is a potential disaster in a fast airplane. He reportedly like to fly fast and low. A real recipe for disaster for a low-time pilot. Could he have put a wingtip in the water and did a ground loop into it at 100+mph? Time will tell.

    I don't care how "easy" anyone says this airplane is to fly. Yeah, of course, it may be "easy" for the licensed pilot they have going out and evaluating the "ease of flying". But the experienced pilot is NOT Hawkin's target market. From Day One it's been the well-heeled NON-PILOT.
    Again, anyone can go back and read Icon's marketing pitch on the product from Day One. This thing was marketed, just like Light Sport that it falls into is marketed, as an "easier way into aviation".

    What they've been selling with the A5 is the ultimate "Apple-cool iPlane for those with deep pockets". "Learn to fly your own really sexy airplane under this new rule the FAA came up with that doesn't require as much training as everyone had to before."

    There will be MANY more deaths of low time pilots until the thing gets a reputation of "The Icon Widow Maker".

    Lastly, if you are a pilot and REALLY want to have an A5 but can't quite afford one, just wait.

    You'll be able to buy a delivery position from a current holder for a song as Icon ships more of these and more inexperienced pilots kill themselves in them. The news reports say his wife was against him getting it. As they ship more and more novices kill themselves, there will be lots of wives of non-pilot position holders saying, "Sell your delivery position on that thing or I'm leaving!! You take delivery and you are NEVER flying it as long as we're married. Period."

    My thoughts.
    Last edited by Buzz; 11-09-2017 at 10:23 PM.

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    Today is a very sad day in Toronto and Canada and for me personally. "Doc" as he was known was the greatest Blue Jays pitcher ever and one of the greatest pitchers in MLB history. A future hall of famer. 8 all-star game appearances, 2 Cy Youngs, a no hitter and a perfect game in the playoffs. As great a player as he was, he was a much better human being. Over his 12 years with the Blue Jays, I saw him pitch so many times, he was masterful and he and his wife were involved in community activities.

    Doc came from an aviation family. His father was a commercial pilot, an airplane was always part of the family. Doc loved airplanes and loved to fly. He had just received delivery of the Icon only 3 weeks ago. He received delivery #1 of those first 100 special editions that were sold years ago(the ones with the $100K non-refundable deposits). His twitter account posts show many pictures of him and the plane and a post to his dad telling him it flys like a little fighter. There's also a video of him flying with his wife who had earlier expressed not feeling comfortable in a small plane.

    No one knows yet what happened. So not appropriate to speculate about the plane. I've expressed my dislike of the company many times on the forum but I like the plane and I'm sure there's nothing inherently wrong with it. The fatal Icon crash earlier this year in California was determined to be pilot error by the NTSB. Don't know what happened with the crash and sinking of the plane off Miami.

    I do know something about flying off and on water and I will say that you do things with seaplanes that require greater vigilance, higher concentration, greater focus on outside the airplane awareness and a better assessment of risks. I don't know how many seaplane hours Doc had.

    A rhetorical question: Why was he flying a single engine airplane(regardless of being amphibious)10 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico as reported?

    Incredibly, he's not the first Blue Jays player to die in the crash of a plane he was piloting. Former Jays pitcher Corey Lidle flew his Cirrus into a Manhattan high rise a few years ago. It's all so very sad.

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    I admire the airplane itself, but this thing is marketed as a jet ski with wings/water toy. I think the message about keeping it in your garage on a trailer is not to take it to the airport necessarily, but to the boat ramp. the airplanes growing reputation (deserved or not) and the recent price increase may be the beginning of the end. something like half of deposit holders are not pilots (yet)? Inexperience and water flying, stir in a little "hold my beer and watch this"......lot of potential here.

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    Quote Originally Posted by mikey View Post
    I admire the airplane itself, but this thing is marketed as a jet ski with wings/water toy.
    Yep. That's the perfect characterization of their market positioning in the popular press.

    I, too, love the airplane. I think it is, indeed, a really cool airplane.

    The trajectory of the A5 reminds me of the history of ultralights.

    I remember clearly truck drivers stopping in at our local Quicksilver dealer in mid-1981 because they saw the earliest model of Quicksilvers flying over the local interstate in our rural area. They'd buy an early Quicksilver kit on the spot, throw it on their semis and take home. [Not something he should have been doing as a dealer.] Quicksilver tried all manner of things to stop this in the marketplace. I remember one idea of withholding the propeller until a buyer got training.

    [In my view, the infamous 1983 20/20 "Ultralights: Flying or Dying" that rapidly contracted the industry actually saved it. I think if it hadn't scared a lot of the loved ones and friends of the "Honey, I'm going to get me one of them things and teach myself ay-vee-ating" crowd into being against their loved ones owning them, the FAA may have likely tightened up the regs to slow the number of deaths.]

    I think just like the ultralight industry's early positioning as being not much more than a "powered hang glider" in complexity eventually put the cap on that industry, Icon's marketing of this as a Light Sport airplane will eventually put the cap on the sales.

    Halladay's death is now going to put the term "Icon A5" in the average person's mind. Boasting around the office about this really cool airplane you've ordered called the A5 will make you appear crazy to the people you wanted to think you were cool for ordering one. Among the people that have to support someone's position to buy the airplane [especially the spouse] the A5's growing identity as "dangerous because people are dying in them" will shut down a certain level of sales volume. [Spouses don't dig deep enough to determine whether it's a design flaw or pilot in-experience that is causing the crashes.]

    Once the airplane gets even a hint of that reputation, sales will really slow down. Icon will stop meeting the volume projections it had based on being sold into the market as a Light Sport. The investor support the company has been surviving on will disappear. Then it'll fold.

    Sadly, the stage was set for that the minute this plane was conceived and the idea was to market it the Light Sport category.

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    I think the FAA should consider suspending the Special Light Sport certificate (or the weight exemption), pending review.
    Three fatalities in 6000 hours is a very high rate per hour.
    The safety parachute won't help when below 300 feet. Considering the flight mission is marketed as below 300 feet.
    Flying low is risky and should be done by those with more experience, not less.
    And the aircraft could have been designed for crashing at low altitude. Like most crop duster agplanes.

    For example, the Piper Pawnee, was designed for safety by Fred Weick and has a steel tube frame with the pilot behind the wing.

    Really two issues. 1) Adequate pilot experience and training.
    2) aircraft certification with a priority for crash-worthiness (instead of "cool" factor). A more appropriate design is needed for this uncharted and obviously risky low flight mission.
    Last edited by Bill Berson; 11-08-2017 at 03:31 PM.

  9. #9
    I got this from another forum. Supposedly a video of Halladay flying low over the water -- recklessly -- and the wreckage afterwards.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttf_EzEkxBk

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Berson View Post
    I think the FAA should consider suspending the Special Light Sport certificate (or the weight exemption), pending review.
    Let's not throw out the baby with the bath water. It's way too early to even contemplate this. Unless there's been new revelations I'm not aware of, you don't know and I don't know what type of licence or certificate Doc held. Very few know. His wife knows and Kirk Hawkins knows.

    This will come out in the ensuing investigation along with the training he received on the Icon type, his time on other type aircraft, his total flying experience, and his water flying time and experience. Let's not make judgements, conjecture or come to premature conclusions based on zero evidence. The high profile nature of this tragedy means that we'll probably have all this info and the cause sooner rather than later.

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