EAA Sport Aviation - April 2010

irk Hawkins knew the mission was risky.

So like any commander trained by the military, he readied his troops for the potential
hostile forces they faced. • “Before we launched, I briefed our team to be prepared,”
Kirk, a former F- 16 pilot, recounts. “I said, ‘Look, this industry has seen acts like this
before. Just be prepared for some aggressive criticism.” • “Aggressive criticism” may
not equal the hazards Kirk confronted during his Air Force or airline flying careers.
But the flak could have compromised the bold rescue operation Kirk set for his
team: reviving general aviation with a new paradigm of recreational flying and a
product they believed could fulfill that promise. Kirk, CEO and founder of startup
ICON Aircraft, was about to reveal the A5, the company’s amphibious light-sport
aircraft (LSA) at EAA AirVenture 2008.

“I know that we as pilots are often hard
on each other,” Kirk says, recalling his con-
cerns. “We can be cynical. And a lot of
aircraft companies with big ideas haven’t
gone anywhere.”
When the curtains parted at the ICON
rollout, the machine appeared to be some-
thing dreamed up by a video gamer, not an
airplane designer, a vehicle that looked like
it came from Detroit. Its interior was more
high-end sports car than cockpit, with a
dashboard where a pilot expects to find an
instrument panel. The A5 had another
noteworthy feature that proved its wow
factor when demonstrated for the crowd:
folding wings with an optional automatic
retraction system. With its wings tucked,
the A5 could be trailered, free to roam on
land, air, and sea.

But if you cared about the performance numbers most LSA tout—how far and how fast it would go, what whiz-bang avionics were in the panel, how closely it mimicked a certificated airplane, you were in the wrong tent.

“ICON’s mission is not so much about
transportation,” Kirk told the crowd. “It’s
not about the usual metrics of speed, range,
payload, altitude, and complex cockpits. It’s
about getting you out there and interacting
with your world.”
Kirk explained that ICON’s goal was to
create a product that delivered the pure joy
and exhilaration of flying, an experience
that had been lost as airplanes became utili-
tarian tools. So rather than compete with
other aircraft, the A5 was designed to com-
pete in the world of powersports, to be the
apex product in the realm of ATVs, motor-
cycles, watercraft, snowmobiles, and the
like. Utility be damned.

“It’s not about the usual metrics of speed, range, payload,
altitude, and complex cockpits. It’s about getting you out there
and interacting with your world.” —Kirk Hawkins

IMAGING THE POWERSPORT PLANE

“I grew up racing motocross, and sky diving and hang gliding, and flying ultralights, and riding jet skis, and wake boarding,” says Kirk, a Charleston, South Carolina, native. Mechanically inclined as well, Kirk studied mechanical and aerospace engineering in college, earning a master’s degree in engineering from Stanford University before going on to the Air Force and then to American Airlines. Furloughed in 2004, he was ready for a career change.