Icon A5 Request For Weight Increase Exemption Status

[Flyfalcons]

Tell us how and why you know this. What expert knowledge, documentation, design work or other concrete information do you possess that allows you to make your assertion? Support, Support, Support!!! Or do you make this stuff up?

I believe it's the FAA looking for Support, Support, Support!!! to make sure Icon isn't making this stuff up.

[Frank Giger]

Am I missing something fundamental here, or would simply restricting elevator/rudder movement do the same thing, along with standard washout on the wings?

One would lower the crosswind capacity, but that's pretty much what FlightDesign did with the CTLS (max xwind is 11 kts with flaps, 16 without in it) for spin resistance.

Heck, just put in a linkage like on the Eurocoupe and do away with rudder pedals entirely!

[Rotornut]

Whew! Just read this thread cover to cover. Several observations:

1) When I heard a few years ago of the millions of dollars Icon raised for financing, I was stunned. I was having a hard time understanding the delay in production with that amount of money available. That was before the weight exemption request. Recently, I was loosely affiliated with a small, but growing, LSA manufacturer. I watched what was done with a far smaller amount of money, and saw the company do some decent innovations, get their manufacturing certificate, then built and sold planes. At that point, I started to think the A5 might become vaporware, instead of hardware. I also saw some questionable, and seemingly very arbitrary, action by the FAA before granting the manufacturing certificate, or approval of a specific airframe. They were often considering Part 23 regs instead of ASTM. The Small Airplane Directorate appears to this observer as approaching incompetence. I can easily understand Icon's frustration with the FAA. But, I also wonder about Icon's own competence. Money doesn't solve all problems, but it sure seems they should be in production by now, with all their resources.

2) Having helped on that LSA, of composite construction, I've moved fuselages and wings numerous times. The airframe was stressed for 6G, but two people could carry a wing or empty fuselage without breaking a sweat. I'd be very surprised if the entire airframe (no systems installed) weighed 200 pounds. It's really hard for me to understand why Icon "needs" an INCREASE of 250.

3) Earlier comments about landing gear failures are spot on. I've seen several models of airplanes, from different manufacturers, with landing-related failures. Both in sheet-metal and composite airframes. These planes fly like heavier planes, but they can't be as robust and still meet weight requirements. They can make good trainers, but are much less tolerant of the abuse that a student pilot will naturally put on a plane. I did many demo flights with experienced pilots, and found that almost all of them were having a hard time flying slower LSA landing speeds. Another big difference for transition pilots is not realizing that there is less inertia with LSA planes, and power reduction on short final comes later than heavier planes. This leads to a lot of those hard landings. For new pilots, this shouldn't be as much of an issue. But, I saw that the majority of interest in these planes was from existing pilots, concerned about passing their next medical. Any type of aircraft requires training, even for experienced pilots. Maybe even more so. Oh, canopies turned out to be as abuse-tolerant as the gear.

4) One of the problems in comparing USA LSA gross weights vs. similar European aircraft is the cabin load. Let's be blunt: Americans are getting heavier and heavier. With 2 typical Americans in the seats, many of these LSAs would be over-gross if fully fueled. Hmmmm, one could make the case that partial-fuel flights could be a safety issue.

5) Frank said:

Am I missing something fundamental here, or would simply restricting elevator/rudder movement do the same thing, along with standard washout on the wings?

One would lower the crosswind capacity,

Although I've been studying for a seaplane rating, it remains in my to-do bucket. I am helicopter-rated, however. Both seaplanes and helicopters enjoy the flexibility of being able to reduce crosswind components by operating into the wind. Of course, that's not absolute, but usually is much better than being confined by the heading of a runway as a landplane is. Frank might be onto something.

[Floatsflyer]

I believe it's the FAA looking for Support, Support, Support!!! to make sure Icon isn't making this stuff up.

Well, the FAA now possesses all the "support" they need to make THE DECISION, perhaps before the dawn of the next mellinium. Tell ya what Flyfalcons, let's make a friendly wager. If FAA says "Yes", you hand over that pretty red Stinson to me lien free for $1.00. If FAA says "No", I'll say you were right all along! Ya like apples? How do ya like them apples?

[Flyfalcons]

How do you know that Icon provided supporting documents to show the need for a 250 pound increase? As stated earlier, that is a very large amount of extra structure for such a small airplane. Manufacturers don't really get to dictate how much of an exemption they get - there needs to be good reason for it, supported by engineering data to prove that what they are asking for in exemption is necessary for their safety feature, and not to make up for having a heavy airplane with minimal useful load.

[Floatsflyer]

How do you know that Icon provided supporting documents to show the need for a 250 pound increase?... there needs to be good reason for it, supported by engineering data to prove that what they are asking for in exemption is necessary for their safety feature

I'm going to take a leap of faith here and assume you've been a regular follower of this thread for the past 7 months. If that's correct, then you've seen the original Icon request documents attachment dated April or May, 2012 as well as the attachments for FAA's detailed request to Icon dated April, 2013 for additional information and Icon's reply to FAA dated May,2013. I would nicely suggest you re-read these so you can become more familiar with all the why's, wherefores and therefores and the reasons all supported by enough engineering data to stuff a T-Rex. Then you'd be in an excellent position to make more informed comments.

And what about that friendly wager?