Icon A5 Request For Weight Increase Exemption Status

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Originally Posted by kmhd1

What design currently meets the spin resistance standards within the LSA category?

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Every LSA who has achieved an SLSA ticket has had to adhere ASTM F2245, otherwise know as the Industry Consensus Standards. In F2245 Spins, Spinning and Spin Resistance is addressed; F2245-12-4.5.9 to be exact. 4.5.9.4 states "For those airplanes which the design is inherently spin resistance, such resistance must be proven by test and documented. If proven spin resistance, the aircraft must be placarded "no intention spins" but need not comply with 4.5.9.1-4.5.9.3."

Spin resistance was clearly addressed when 2245 was being composed, subsequently approved by ASTM and thusly accepted by the FAA. You don't design an aircraft and see what category it falls after its built. Every designer has the choice to design their aircraft to be spin resistance or not and the rules are clearly spelled out in ASTM F2245.

To answer your question, several LSAs meet the spin resistance requirements as spelled out under F2245, AirCoupe and Teckem (excuse the spelling)to name two but there are more out there.

For those going to Oshkosh you have to check out the museum, they just announced that they will be displaying the Beaver hat where the LSA weight limits were arbitrarily pulled from. Its a must see!

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Originally Posted by Popeye

Every LSA who has achieved an SLSA ticket has had to adhere ASTM F2245, otherwise know as the Industry Consensus Standards. In F2245 Spins, Spinning and Spin Resistance is addressed; F2245-12-4.5.9 to be exact. 4.5.9.4 states "For those airplanes which the design is inherently spin resistance, such resistance must be proven by test and documented. If proven spin resistance, the aircraft must be placarded "no intention spins" but need not comply with 4.5.9.1-4.5.9.3."

Spin resistance was clearly addressed when 2245 was being composed, subsequently approved by ASTM and thusly accepted by the FAA. You don't design an aircraft and see what category it falls after its built. Every designer has the choice to design their aircraft to be spin resistance or not and the rules are clearly spelled out in ASTM F2245.

To answer your question, several LSAs meet the spin resistance requirements as spelled out under F2245, AirCoupe and Teckem (excuse the spelling)to name two but there are more out there.

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ASTM F2245-12-4.5.9.4 is not the same standards as described in FAR part 23 and which Icon is referring to in terms of the spin resistance it purportedly has achieved.

The context of this entire thread relates to the weight exemption request Icon filed in order that it may incorporate a spin-resistant airframe. The spin-resistance Icon says it has achieved relates to the standards as described and in accordance with the full envelope of the 14 CFR 23.221(a)(2) standards. If the A5 makes it to production with the weight exemption it will be the first to meet those high standards and do so as an LSA.

No current LSA meets those FAR part 23 spin-resistant standards.

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Originally Posted by Frank Giger

You have to put limits somewhere or there aren't categories at all.

LSA weight limits are just fine for simple, light, two passenger aircraft with a low stall and low cruise speed operating environment, as has been demonstrated over and over again.

Raising the weight limit for ducks so that geese now fit in it does not make a swan a duck.

Using "safety" as a reason to disregard aircraft category limits due to poor design from the start speaks volumes to the integrity of the Icon team.

It's not like the didn't know the LSA rules before they began - to now say they can't safely design within those constraints isn't the FAA's problem; it's Icon's design team's engineering incompetence.

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Agreed that you have to put limits, but when the limits do not consider or foresee future safety innovations, then if nothing else the exemption process should be employed which is exactly what Icon is doing. In their original request they also mentioned that they would support "any future FAA rulemaking activity that would allow for S-LSA products with increased maximum takeoff weight to accommodate substantial safety improvements such as spin resistance".

Icon hasn't said they can't safely design within the current standards. They have said specifically that they can't incorporate a FAR part 23 compliant spin-resistant airframe within the current standards and would like the FAA to allow this innovation to be made available to pilots certified to fly LSA's.

[QUOTE=Popeye;33286]

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Originally Posted by Floatsflyer

Floats, the two examples you provided are not relevant to the 429s exemption. In your first example, the Turbo-normalized Bonanzas exemption is a STC that allows them to add more weight, staying within part 23, WITH OUT CROSSING THE PART 25 THRESHOLD, which is completely legal and should be.

The helicopter you mentioned is the same thing; it’s a part 27 bird and was granted a STC that kept it within part 27, once again WITH OUT CROSSING PART 29 THRESHOLD.


If they crossed these lines they have to comply with the entire regulation, you can’t be partially Part 23. Either you are or you are not. It’s not apples to oranges; it’s literally in black and white.


What Icon is trying to do is manufacture an aircraft at the above prescribed weight limit without having to adhere to any of the other regulations and bare the associated cost in said category, be it standard, primary, recreational, part 23 or part 25. Once you cross that line you have to play by a diffident and more expensive play-book. As the aircraft gets bigger it represent a greater threat to occupants of the aircraft, persons and property on the ground which requires a greater level of safety.

Personally, I like the fact that the 737 is manufactured to Part 25 standards and not manufactured under part 103, which there are zero rules regarding manufacturing of 103 aircraft, design regs yes, manufacturing regs no.

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You make some good points here and its probably one of the reasons the FAA has taken so long to hand down a ruling on the weight exemption request.

However, correct me if I am wrong, but FAR part 23 spin-resistance is not a REQUIREMENT for planes that fall into that higher weight category.

So Icon is meeting a standard that planes in that higher weight category are NOT even REQUIRED to meet. If all planes in that higher weight category were required to meet the spin-resistance standard then I would agree they should have to meet all of the other requirements of that category as well.

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Originally Posted by kmhd1

Icon hasn't said they can't safely design within the current standards. They have said specifically that they can't incorporate a FAR part 23 compliant spin-resistant airframe within the current standards and would like the FAA to allow this innovation to be made available to pilots certified to fly LSA's.

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Of course they haven't said that but it's no secret that plane of theirs is heavy. It's pretty clear to most of us that they decided to go for an LSA loophole by claiming spin resistance and somehow "adding" 250 pounds of structure that most of us know couldn't be added to a bare airframe if you were pouring lead shot into every cavity of the structure. Come on, what seems more logical - that the company decided to go through a substantial redesign well into the already delayed development process for marketing, or that the plane is, and always has been, a brick and they need that 250 pounds of additional gross weight so they can fit more than one person and half tanks?

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Originally Posted by Floatsflyer

Your opinions are nothing more than unproven and unsustantiated allegations. But you appear to have a lot of insider information on Icon's design team so please tell us some factual detail about their "poor design", "integrity" and "engineering incompetence."

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The Icon design is a failure producing bunch simply because they set out to make an LSA aircraft and by their own admission couldn't cut the technical mustard - and failed in the one area that should have been first in design, namely safety in flight characteristics.

They're off by 250 pounds, which is a lot in LSA aircraft!

I'm naturally going to infer that the pre-exemption request design must have been inherently unsafe or they wouldn't have had to go back to the drawing board and come up with something that's more than 250 pounds to the design.

Well, if the rumor about FAA is true, we will know the result within 24 hours. If FAA does give ICON weight exemption, which will be the first time for LSA, gotta be some reason for FAA to make the decision with confidence.

It's odd, but this is starting to look like a cross between Jim Bede and Paul Moller (e.g, Skycar).

Like Bede and the BD-5, Icon is trying to market the A5 as "everyone's airplane," though admittedly Bede was making that pitch to pilots. Many folks disparage the concept and process, but there is a hard core of true believers who claim that everything is fine, just fine. Really saw it in relation to the BD-12, with some decrying the "Naysayers" up until the prototype crashed on its first flight (CG too far aft, despite 200+ pounds of ballast in the nose).

The Moller similarity? The emphasis on getting people to invest money in the company.

Right now, I'm kinda hoping the FAA DOES approve Icon's waiver. For one thing, that should open the floodgates for other companies to request approval for "heavy" LSAs. And, of course, it'd be interesting to see if Icon can actually go into production, and whether Icon's market predictions come true.

Ron Wanttaja

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Originally Posted by Eaglerhythm

Well, if the rumor about FAA is true, we will know the result within 24 hours. If FAA does give ICON weight exemption, which will be the first time for LSA, gotta be some reason for FAA to make the decision with confidence.

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It will be the first time over the maximum of 1430 pounds(seaplanes). It's not the first time exemptions have been approved and granted. Terrafugia and Maverick have already been granted weight exemptions for land planes in the past 2 years.