When I made my products-to-see checklist before launching for Sun ‘n Fun last month, Icon’s A5 never made it on and it should have. But in my world it was an easy chore to drop because Icon went silent. There had been no press releases in my inbox and little if any industry chatter since the high-profile fatal crash of Roy Halladay last year. So when it dawned upon me while cruising home that Icon wasn’t even at Sun ‘n Fun, I thought about all of the delivery positions that Icon was to begin filling, and also some of our readers who slapped down deposit money to get on the list for an A5. What’s going on at Icon?
To find out, I dialed up Icon’s Brian Manning, who told me something I already knew: In 2017, production numbers for the Icon didn’t come close to projections. Moving forward, Manning said the company now plans to deliver between six and ten aircraft per month and it completed six in April. For 2018, Icon plans to deliver 150 total. Since the beginning, the company has finished around 20 aircraft total.