A5 Buyer Forwards ICON E-Mail To ANN
ICON Aircraft announced that it successfully closed another
round of equity financing in June. The new round of investment
capital is intended to take ICON through the completion of its
ongoing engineering and flight test program as well as the
manufacturability phase for the ICON A5 amphibious sport plane.
"The high investor confidence we're seeing in ICON is due to
ICON's all-star team, the outstanding design of the A5,
overwhelming market enthusiasm, ICON's growing $40 million-plus in
backlogged sales, as well as the fact that the first two years of
production are already presold," said ICON's CEO, Kirk Hawkins.
ICON's rigorous flight testing regimen of the A5 will continue
through this year. To date, the performance of the A5 has met or
exceeded the exceptionally high design standards and expectations
that are central to ICON's product philosophy. The first public
flight demonstration of the A5 is planned at the upcoming EAA
Oshkosh Air Show held between July 27 and Aug 2 in Oshkosh, WI. The
A5 will make its first public flight debut by flying into the
Oshkosh Air Show for a press conference at 10:30 am on Monday, July
27. Water flying demonstrations are also planned for the A5 later
that week, Friday morning, July 31, at the nearby seaplane
base.
ICON announced that it is pushing out its production start date
by nine months. First customer deliveries are now scheduled to
begin in third quarter of 2011. This change was necessary due to
the unprecedented crisis within the global capital markets
beginning last fall.
"While the changes in the capital markets did affect our
production start date, the current economic climate has minimal
impact on ICON overall. The real economic environment that would
affect ICON is more than 4-5 years away given ICON's current
backlog of sales - well beyond the expected horizon of the current
climate," said Hawkins. ICON continues to see exceptionally strong
demand for the A5 with the aircraft position list recently passing
number 400.
This news was confirmed by an ANN reader who sent us an e-mail
he recieved from ICON CEO and Founder Kirk Hawkins. The
message read, in part "While the current economic climate has taken
a tremendous toll on much of the aviation industry, ICON has
experienced minimal impact. However, the unprecedented crisis in
the global capital markets which began last fall did cause
financing delays that resulted in lost time to our production
schedule. Given this, we will need to push out our production start
date by nine months. First customer deliveries are now scheduled to
begin in the third quarter of 2011. While this decision was not
easy, we're excited that it is the only change in our plans that
we've been forced to make.
The good news overall is that you're early on the ICON position
list, and the A5 is still the hottest, most anticipated LSA on the
global market, bar none. As a reminder, your A5 deposit is held in
escrow, refundable and fully transferable. Additionally, with the
strong sales rate we're seeing these days and the lengthening order
list that recently passed position #410, we're considering closing
the order list in the coming months. If/when that announcement is
made, those of you holding aircraft orders will be in the fortunate
position to have an early A5 slot that others will not be able to
gain access to for some time."
ICON plans to display the A5 at EAA AirVenture at Oshkosh,
including a water demonstration.