Personal Plane flies, folds, tows, swims, and beats SUVs on mileage - ICON A5 amphibious sportsplane completes first test flight

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We never did get the hovercrafts we were promised as kids, but we're getting closer. Imagine sailing above the Bourne Bridge on your way to the beach, while consuming less gas than the SUVs stuck beneath you in traffic.

A compact, two-seat plane with folding wings that can be pulled behind a car on a trailer will premiere at an air show in Wisconsin next week in a development that heralds a new genre of flying machines designed to bring the power-boating experience to the sky. Developed by two Stanford business school graduates, Kirk Hawkins and Steen Strand, the ICON A5 is the latest and arguably coolest plane to take to the skies under a new classification that the Federal Aviation Administration calls light-sport aircraft.

The A5's top speed is 120 miles per hour, and its maximum altitude is about 10,000 feet, in keeping with its Light-Sport Aircraft classification - a new class created to make personal aviation accessible to more people. It runs on auto gasoline and gets 18 to 20 miles to the gallon, according to Icon.

Ranging from $60,000 for a build-it-yourself kit, to $140,000 for the innovative ICON A5, these two-seat planes let anyone with a valid state driver's license and 20 hours of flying instruction make short flights for travel or pleasure, said Dick Knapinski, spokesman for the air show in Oshkosh, Wis., where the new plane will spread its wings. "This is something new and cutting edge, an aircraft whose wings fold so you can put it on a trailer like a boat or a jet ski," said Knapinski, spokesman for the Experimental Aircraft Association, host for the Wisconsin fly-fest.

ICON Aircraft, the company behind the new plane, was conceived at Stanford in 2005 when Hawkins, a former pilot in the Air Force and for an airline, met Strand, a product designer for IDEO and other Silicon Valley companies. ICON spokeswoman Jennie Bragalone said Hawkins realized that the new FAA licensing and aircraft rules created a niche for an aircraft that was both sexy and space-saving because it could be stored and towed like a boat. "He wants to make flying the next power sport," she said.

ICON, now based in Los Angeles, aims to take its single-plane prototype into volume production with private backing from entrepreneurs like John Dorton, chief executive of Mastercraft Boats and tech maven Esther Dyson. But the Stanford-spawned craft will have to get up to speed fast to compete with European imports, according to a bird's-eye view of the light-sport aircraft market from Chris Dancy, with the 415,000-member Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. Dancy said that when the FAA minted this new sport-plane category in July 2004, firms from the Czech Republic, Italy and Germany flew right into the U.S. market because - space being more precious in Europe - plane-builders there were already turning out craft below the FAA's 1,430-pound weight limit.

It's still early days for this new category. Dancy said about 2,000 sport-plane licenses have been issued so far, compared with more than 200,000 licenses for private planes, which require 40 hours of training and a physical exam. Other U.S. brands include American Legend Aircraft, Aircraft Manufacturing and Development, Cub Crafters and Cessna, he said.

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Photos courtesy of ICON Aircraft

Original Source: SF Chronicle and Boston Globe

Related Article (with video and press photos): ICON Aircraft Successfully Flies ICON A5 Sport Plane Prototype - First test flight completes major milestone

Official Site: ICON Aircraft