The light duty ICON A5 personal aircraft is an amphibious plane which can be flown over mountain ranges and also driven on water bodies like a boat. It is a trendy and stylish aircraft with a luxury interior and dashboard or center console as you may call just like the one you can find on luxury sedan vehicles.
All images © ICON Aircraft
The ICON A5 is a 2-seater plane which provides a certain level of comfort with a wide-angle and somewhat panoramic view of the terrain which the operator and passengers are moving over. Image renderings by the maker reveals a lovely design language.
It utilizes a pair of tyres at the rear and single tyre at the front as its landing gears for runway, landing and takeoff. The plane also has foldable wings which can collapse at any given time, allowing users to park on driveways as well as easy docking on water.
With a weight of 685 kilograms, it can be towed by an SUV to any location. A Rotax '912' engine produces up to 100 horsepower which can propel the plane to a max speed/thrust of about 175 km/hr (equivalent to 109 mph) up to 15000 feet in the air, while covering a range of 427 nautical miles.
Accordingly, the ICON A5 is reportedly designed by KlausTritschler, a yacht, motorcycle, and private aircraft designer who spent over 15 years at BMW group designworks.
The ICON A5 can be operated and flown by virtually anyone with a sport pilot license - that suggests the aircraft isn't designed for the advanced flyers only but also for novice and inexperienced pilots or would-be pilots.
