Schoolhouse rock

So the modern, 500,000-square-foot factory with its 19-station assembly line, massive metal fixtures, computer work stations, and a humming ventilation system is mostly idle. And it must stay that way for several months as a production facility in Mexico gears up to produce carbon fiber Icon components in high volume. Components for the first 20 Icon A5s were produced by Cirrus Aircraft in Grand Forks, North Dakota, but Icon cancelled that cost-plus contract when the precision parts—almost all of them complex shapes with rakish curves that give the A5 its distinctive look—cost more than projected.

Icon’s vast assembly building is an echo chamber— and the silence is painful.The wait gnaws at Icon CEO Kirk Hawkins, an impatient, action-oriented former fighter pilot who helped found the company in 2007 and pushed the A5 concept through design, testing, ASTM approval, an FAA waiver for a weight limit increase, and now to the cusp of high-rate production. Along the way, he’s formed an investor group that has seen the company through the Great Recession and an unwanted postponement of customer deliveries.

“This is painful, but it’s the right thing to do for the long term,” Hawkins said. “We’re building a sophisticated airplane, and we’ve got to create a manufacturing and production operation that will keep up with demand. That’s not easy, and unfortunately, it’s not quick, either.”

It would be tempting to produce small numbers of A5s by hand in the interim to bring in some revenue, but Hawkins said that would be a distraction, not a solution. Icon’s business case requires the efficiency that can only come through high-rate production, and that means enduring this forced timeout while production gets cranked up on the 360 composite parts that go into every airframe.

“We’re building an exceptional airplane,” he said. “That makes the manufacturing extraordinarily complex.”

Red schoolhouse

During this involuntary stand-down, Icon is pushing ahead in other areas—particularly flight training. About 10 glistening new A5s are on the flight line at the Vacaville factory, where they are used mostly to train new sport pilots. Icon has about 20 airplanes flying at Icon-owned flight schools in Vacaville and Tampa, Florida.

At the bright red schoolhouse at Vacaville, more than 50 pilots have earned Sport Pilot certificates, completed seaplane ratings, or taken the three-flight A5 checkout course with splashdowns at nearby Lake Berryessa, a reservoir in the rolling hills of California’s wine country.

In November 2016 the company opened an Icon flight training facility at Peter O. Knight Airport in Tampa, and the picturesque facility has access to a charted seaplane base and two hard-surface runways. Prospective Icon owners can get demo flights, checkouts, and even rent A5s as they await delivery of their own airplanes. Icon plans to open a similar facility in Texas.

My two-day, three-flight A5 checkout for rated seaplane pilots at Vacaville began when a FedEx package arrived at my home with four well-illustrated books: a course guide, academics, operations, and an optional brainy supplement filled with formulas that math majors can appreciate. Icon staff wrote and produced them, and they’re admirably short, focused, punchy, and A5-specific.

I arrived at the red schoolhouse early on my first training day and watched the place come to life. The hangar doors opened, revealing a half-dozen identically painted A5s, their wings neatly folded to preserve space, and to let students practice unfolding them. Inside the training center, modular classrooms were fitted with flat-screen monitors, A5 models on sticks, and personal computers.

Sliding glass doors opened to a patio overlooking the airport runway, and glossy car magazines showing Ferraris, BMWs, and Audis were placed atop sleek tables. A wall showcased black-and-white photos of Icon milestones as well as reproductions of aviation magazines with A5s on the cover. A limitless coffee machine, shuffleboard table, and M&M dispensers that didn’t require coins gave the place the hip feel of a Silicon Valley workspace.

Each flight begins with a detailed briefing that explains goals, topics, and a sequence of tasks to perform. There’s a kneeboard briefing card for each flight, and we stick to the script.

My instructor, Greg “Groucho” Zackney, like most of the Icon trainers, is a former military pilot (Marine AV–8B Harriers) but well versed in general aviation, too. “We avoid the whole, ‘What do you want to do today?’ discussion by spelling things out in advance,” Zackney said. “We’ve got the flexibility to emphasize certain points. But we know where we’re going and what it takes to get there.”

Miraculous things

About 40 percent of Icon customers have no flying experience at all; others have single-engine land ratings, and some have seaplane ratings. Icon schools have a curriculum for each.

The AOA indicator accounts for variables such as density altitude, aircraft weight, and configuration, so there’s no guesswork or fudge factor.My first flight includes normal takeoffs and landings, step and plow water taxiing, and simulated glassy and rough-water operations. We avoid going up and down the boat ramp because it causes delays. “This airplane is a people magnet and everyone wants to get close,” Zackney said. “We’ve had to shut down at the boat ramp before because people literally swarmed the airplane.”

The most unusual aspect of Icon flight training is the prominence of the angle-of-attack indicator—and the central place it takes in every aspect of flying, from climb to cruise to approach and landing. AOA isn’t the first among equals in an Icon pilot’s instrument scan; it’s dominant.

“AOA shows the pilot exactly how hard the wing is working in every flight and atmospheric condition,” Zackney said. “It doesn’t matter whether pilots have ever seen an AOA indicator or not. They intuitively get it, and they fly better and more consistently as a result.”

After takeoff, an A5 pilot climbs at “white line” on the AOA indicator (about 60 knots), which displays the maximum lift/drag ratio. On approach, the pilot flies that same angle regardless of flap position, or whether the landing gear is up for a water landing or down for a hard-surface touchdown. Normal water touchdowns should occur at “yellow line,” a slightly higher AOA, and rough-water landings should be higher still. The yellow line on the AOA indicator also is the target for 60-degree-bank, minimum-radius turns.

My second and third flights included beaching the A5, emergency procedures, confined-area takeoffs, spot landings, and actual glassy water landings that relied on the GPS-based vertical speed indicator on a Garmin 796 to set the rate of descent (which it did admirably).

The A5 does some seemingly miraculous things on the air and in the water. Airborne, the wing hangs on and refuses to fully stall, even though I went to absurd lengths to provoke it. On the water, the A5 accelerates from a standing start and moves onto the step by itself with the elevator neutral. When step taxiing, the pilot can use full rudder deflection, left or right, without striking a wing tip on the water. Even with the pusher propeller’s high thrust line, power changes don’t create strong pitching moments, and torque and P-factor are minimal during low-speed, high-power climbs.

Checking out in the A5 confirmed my initial impression of it as an incomparably exciting yet forgiving airplane with tremendous potential to bring new adherents to GA (see “This Changes Everything,” August 2015 AOPA Pilot). The A5 has the potential to be a great GA recruiting tool, and it’s easy to envision Icon clubs, fractional-ownership groups, and training facilities in every U.S. city that has runways and water.

Of course, that wholesome future requires a critical mass of airplanes—and that doesn’t exist yet, and won’t for some unknowable period of time. Icon plans to produce 50 new A5s in Vacaville in 2017 and 300 the following year. By the end of 2018, the company plans to deliver 40 new airplanes a month, making it among the world’s largest piston aircraft manufacturers in unit terms.

If that happens, this sprawling facility will be buzzing—and that will be a joyful noise.

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