Icon A5.. another crash Jul 27

Tantalum said:
Okay one more post then I have to go back to work!
But can you imagine seeing this view out your 172 / Cirrus / Piper window? How is this not in violation of FAR 91.13?
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Amphibious aircraft; it may have just taken off from the water.

Ron Wanttaja
 
wanttaja said:
Oh, there's no argument from me...I know it's being basically promoted as an aerial jet ski.
....
Ron Wanttaja
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While I am firmly in the camp that finds how the plane is marketed to be distasteful, I do wonder how it applies in this particular accident. On POA, we have all levels of pilots knocking the plane’s marketing and the pilots in the various accidents. Myself included.

So we as a whole see something wrong. Yet I believe the pilot in this case is an ATP with ASEL, AMEL, and ASES ratings and is also a CFI. He is also a regional sales manager for Icon.

This wasn’t just some beer swilling bubba novice pilot who wanted a winged jet ski. By his credentials at least, he was an aviation professional.

So...

Do we think a pilot with these credentials would fall prey to the marketing when we all seem to see through it?

Or do we believe that this pilot was the reckless type to begin with and it finally caught up with him?

Or do we believe that on this particular day, he just exercised uncharacteristic poor judgment and the holes in the cheese just happened to line up?

Something else?

I’m at a bit of a loss to be honest.
 
RoscoeT said:
Wow, we are actually still doing this here. Fly 360 deg turns on a windy day at low airspeed. I guess you stall/spin every time you turn downwind. :eek:
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Ha! Beware easterly turns! When making a 180 turn from westerly to easterly, you will encounter a 500-1000 mph difference in speed (depending on latitude) due to the rotation of the earth. That sounds frightening. Or should I factor in the orbital speed of the earth, or the proper motion of our solar system within the Milky Way? It's that frame of reference thing again. This concept is still baffling to many pilots, to the point it can falsely inform one's flight decisions. :confused:
 
Well, just for perspective, take a look at how many people get killed every year on non-flying jetskis which are vehicles that are sold and operated without any required training or license. Icon's marketing isn't much different from everyone else's including all of the homebuilt "bush" planes currently being hyped. They just had a bunch more promotional capital than most.
 
In most postings of this thread, there is a big misunderstanding of plain physics!
Yes, the plane flies in air and generally / eventually everything is relative to air.
However, when it comes to acceleration of the mass of the airplane only the reference to ground matters!!!
The moment the plane turns downwind, it needs to accelerate to its new ground speed. That energy needs to come from somewhere (namely from the difference between thrust and drag). It will take a few seconds and during this time, drag and lift is reduced.
 
SkyDog58 said:
regional sales manager for Icon
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Thanks for the thoughtful post

SkyDog58 said:
So...

Do we think a pilot with these credentials would fall prey to the marketing when we all seem to see through it?

Or do we believe that this pilot was the reckless type to begin with and it finally caught up with him?

Or do we believe that on this particular day, he just exercised uncharacteristic poor judgment and the holes in the cheese just happened to line up?

Something else?
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There's a whole social psychology aspect to this.. It's also not uncommon for people selling a product to push the envelope of the product and bend the rules a bit, ultimately you're showing off what the plane *can* do, not what it can't.

That flight probably would have been completely un-noteworthy had they taken off somewhere else on the lake.. but, given the number of boats on the lake and other factors they were "forced" in a sense to depart from there. Would telling the prospective buyer "hey sorry we can't fly today, it's too busy" or aborting the take off help sell it? Doubtful. Had they taken off successfully that customer would now know that he can depart from there and make it.. maybe next time the plane's even heavier and he gives himself even less room? The salesman has probably also pushed the envelope a couple times and gotten away with it.. remember that high hours and ratings doesn't always translate to "safe" - he's also been indoctrinated into the company's culture, and ultimately if he's working there believes in, and promotes at least to some degree, the "jetski with wings" hype. I'm quite certain that if you put someone in that similar situation who typically flies a Beaver or 182 on floats and has no vested interested in selling the plane or the image that crash would not have happened. Mind you, who knows what pressure the employees there are under, obviously judging by their Glassdoor page there's a heavy financial stress to keep your job under threat of layoff for financial reasons.. surely the regional sales manager will do what he can to sell another product.. and put a ton of faith in the airplane's (admittedly) strong aerodynamic abilities and design level
 
Martin Renschler said:
The moment the plane turns downwind, it needs to accelerate to its new ground speed. That energy needs to come from somewhere (namely from the difference between thrust and drag). It will take a few seconds and during this time, drag and lift is reduced.
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Go fly some steep turns and report back what happens to your airspeed. Our earth revolves at around 2,000 mph relative to itself, when you turn your car in a circle you are not feeling that difference in "acceleration to its new speed".. this is really basic relative physics and principles stuff
giphy.gif
 
Palmpilot said:
What law of physics supports that assertion?
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I'm horrified that a surprising amount of people don't get this.

Martin Renschler said:
there is a big misunderstanding of plain physics
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Indeed there is, and I'm sorry but you're one of them. Try this, grab one of those small cheap drones and next time you are on a Delta flight flight in a circle in the plane.. the drone will not care that it's traveling at 600 mph relative to the ground, only the air around it matters, and it will turn around in a circle beautifully
 
The speculation and sheer conjecture in these accident threads is laughable. It's often couched in phrases like "we can learn from this," and "Occam's razor," but the extrapolation and 'facts' made up from compounded guessing is ridiculous, in the traditional definition of 'ridicule.'

Nauga,
and some whole cloth
 
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Martin Renschler said:
However, when it comes to acceleration of the mass of the airplane only the reference to ground matters!!!
The moment the plane turns downwind, it needs to accelerate to its new ground speed. That energy needs to come from somewhere (namely from the difference between thrust and drag). It will take a few seconds and during this time, drag and lift is reduced.
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Still pretty sure that’s wrong. What is tying it to the ground so as to bless it as a frame of reference?
 
wanttaja said:
Amphibious aircraft; it may have just taken off from the water.
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It’s just that I’ve had and continue to have similar views on occasion - it just doesn’t appear especially low to me. A routine flight when I lived in S FL was an aerial tour of Miami, staying below what was then the TCA. Fly over the Seaquarium and Key Biscayne. Sometimes the Overseas Highway to the Keys. Always mindful of the regs concerning Minimum Safe Altitudes. So far, no harm no foul - and no violations of any sort.
 
Tantalum said:
Back when I was on Facebook I posted something sort of similar on our club's FB page doing the bay tour here in San Diego.. ATC has you fly that, occasionally "at or below 500" - you can get some killer views.. but the majority of comments ridiculed that type of flying for a host of reasons

Whatever, to each their own. I think their approach and marketing is flawed, and these accidents (to me) seem to prove that
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Have done the bay tour. Yes, you have to assume you will be in the water if the engine dies. So you had no issue doing that in your aircraft, but it's a problem when someone does this in an amphib? Also looks a lot like the view from a cub.
 
Martin Renschler said:
In most postings of this thread, there is a big misunderstanding of plain physics!
Yes, the plane flies in air and generally / eventually everything is relative to air.
However, when it comes to acceleration of the mass of the airplane only the reference to ground matters!!!
The moment the plane turns downwind, it needs to accelerate to its new ground speed. That energy needs to come from somewhere (namely from the difference between thrust and drag). It will take a few seconds and during this time, drag and lift is reduced.
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That is an impressively incorrect statement. My hat's off to you, sir.
 
Martin Renschler said:
In most postings of this thread, there is a big misunderstanding of plain physics!
Yes, the plane flies in air and generally / eventually everything is relative to air.
However, when it comes to acceleration of the mass of the airplane only the reference to ground matters!!!
The moment the plane turns downwind, it needs to accelerate to its new ground speed. That energy needs to come from somewhere (namely from the difference between thrust and drag). It will take a few seconds and during this time, drag and lift is reduced.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but this is entirely wrong. There is no wind as far as the plane is concerned. Any changes in ground speed as you turn are already baked in, since any motion of the air mass you're in the middle of has already been transferred to you as well. It's already carrying you along (and doing so equally no matter what direction you're flying), so the air may as well be motionless as far as you're concerned. The ground is completely irrelevant; it might as well not exist (well, except as a source of gravity).

Imagine you're in a boat being carried smoothly but rapidly downstream. It's a big boat, and you're below decks with no view outside at all. Does it take more energy to walk one direction rather than another across the room? Further, I suggest that there is no test you can perform, in your room without a view, that will tell you which direction the boat and river are moving.
 
Lindberg said:
but it's a problem when someone does this in an amphib
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No. Don't straw man me out of context. My point is well illustrated throughout this thread. The editor of Flying also picked up on it, as do many others. Marketing an airplane (any airplane) as a "toy" or jet ski equivalent is what I have a problem with
 
Martin Renschler said:
In most postings of this thread, there is a big misunderstanding of plain physics!
Yes, the plane flies in air and generally / eventually everything is relative to air.
However, when it comes to acceleration of the mass of the airplane only the reference to ground matters!!!
The moment the plane turns downwind, it needs to accelerate to its new ground speed. That energy needs to come from somewhere (namely from the difference between thrust and drag). It will take a few seconds and during this time, drag and lift is reduced.
Click to expand...

The ONLY relation to the earth that an airplane has is via gravity, and gravity ONLY acts in the vertial. It has NO effect on lateral motion of the airplane. Inertia is in relation to space, the entire universe, and as other have noted, our whole solar system is rocketing through space at phenomenal speed.

I used to be a flight instructor and taught IFR. Go flying when the wind aloft is really strong, like 40 or 50 knots or more, put the student under the hood, have him make a constant steep turn, and ask him to tell me when we're turning upwind or downwind. Is there any airspeed increase or decrease? Nope. Does the ball swing in or out? Nope. And yet the airplane is constantly drifting downwind. When you take his hood off he doesn't know where he is.

So much in aviation is not intuitive at all, and non-pilots are sometimes full of intuitive ideas that make it difficult to teach them to fly.

This is a Foucalt pendulum. Its direction of swing changes as the earth rotates in space, proving that inertia is related solely to space. If your assertion was true, it would always maintain the same compass direction instead of changing.

foucault3.jpg
 
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Martin Renschler said:
In most postings of this thread, there is a big misunderstanding of plain physics!
Yes, the plane flies in air and generally / eventually everything is relative to air.
However, when it comes to acceleration of the mass of the airplane only the reference to ground matters!!!
The moment the plane turns downwind, it needs to accelerate to its new ground speed. That energy needs to come from somewhere (namely from the difference between thrust and drag). It will take a few seconds and during this time, drag and lift is reduced.
Click to expand...

We're getting trolled right?
 
Tantalum said:
No. Don't straw man me out of context. My point is well illustrated throughout this thread. The editor of Flying also picked up on it, as do many others.
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While we're going through the list of fallacious arguments, add 'appeal to authority.'

Nauga,
who is not appealing
 
Tantalum said:
..and after that accident everyone in my office was questioning me about flying.. I had to speak to a reckless company's standards as if they represented all of GA

PS, the Flying dude hit the nail on the head here.. but that doesn't stop them from glamorizing the plane every few magazines, their most recent magazine featured it on their cover with a glowing review
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"marketing the airplane designed to be a flying toy... seems like a recipe for disaster" <- and indeed we're seeing that now. Looks like they haven't learned anything still, and continue to fly this plane low and near the edge of its envelope in a type of Titanic-Infallibility-Syndrome. It's obvious from the video that the flight was going to end poorly... well, obvious to everyone but the salesman flying the plane on board and all the folks at Icon. After all, it's just a toy, a jet ski with wings, right?! What can possibly go wrong /S .. hell a NASA engineer even helped design the wings!
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This. ^^ An earlier post of mine from a previous Icon accident on the same topic, with some jet ski comparison stuff Icon has wiped from their website:

https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/com...off-of-tampa-coast.106843/page-9#post-2404676

Icon was targeting this very type of buyer, interested in the "exhilaration" of flying the "apex product" in the jet ski world, while not having to worry about "the usual metrics of speed, range, payload, altitude, and complex cockpits." "Utility be damned."

Again, Icon's now deleted marketing article from their website.

Kirk Hawkins [CEO and founder of startup ICON Aircraft] 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...

“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 utilitarian tools. So rather than compete with other aircraft, the A5 was designed to compete in the world of powersports, to be the apex product in the realm of ATVs, motorcycles, watercraft, snowmobiles, and the like. Utility be damned.

As Steen Strand, the company’s co-founder and chief operating officer puts it, “No one goes to buy a jet ski and says, ‘I want to buy a jet ski, and I need it to get over to there.’ They get a jet ski because they want to have fun.”​
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...tion_April_2010.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us​
 
Bacho said:
A a race sailor I understand the wind, In many ways I agree that the heading relative to the wind should have little bearing, but as a sailor I can tell you that the edges of tree lined lakes can be very unpredictable on wind. From sailing experience I think he would have quickly encountered a lull as he got close to the edge. Turning away from the wind he issues would be compounded if/when he hit the wind again.
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Hammer meet nail...

I think everyone in this discussion understands that in a steady state wind there is no effect on the aircraft other than groundspeed. What is being missed here is that wind gradients, gusts and mechanical turbulence all have a huge impact at low speed in close proximity to obstacles. The video suggests the pilot was either ignorant to those factors or ignored them resulting in a poor outcome to the flight.
 
nauga said:
While we're going through the list of fallacious arguments, add 'appeal to authority.'

Nauga,
who is not appealing
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It's actually not a correct use of appealing to authority fallacy. If someone calls me and tells me they are a police officer and asks for my computer log in and I give it to them then yes, that's an appeal to authority fallacy. If I ask my doctor for their opinion on my health and I trust them then is that also an appeal to authority fallacy? I think not. I'm appealing to their authority, because they are one in that subject matter, it is not a fallacy. Or do you inherently distrust everything your doctor tells you because otherwise believing them would be fallacious?

Referencing the editor of (one of) the largest aviation magazine in the world as a point that my views on Icon having an inappropriate marketing strategy are not at all fallacious. What would have been fallacious is if I referenced some random person.. the media often does this, a professor of english will weigh in on military matters
 
Tantalum said:
Referencing the editor of (one of) the largest aviation magazine in the world as a point that my views on Icon having an inappropriate marketing strategy are not at all fallacious.
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I disagree. The argument that the idea carries weight because it was published as editorial commentary in a mass-market medium has no bearing on the fact of the matter. It is presented only as a way to sway opinion because a *perceived* authority printed *an opinion* that agreed with you.

Nauga,
factored
 
nauga said:
perceived
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Ultimately all we have is perception (cue George Berkeley).. going back to the health example.. if I'm feeling sick I can call my friend, my dad, watch Dr Oz, or go to the doctor. The doctor is going to be the best authority, but ultimately they aren't God so their diagnosis is ultimately fallible and when you boil it down just an opinion (but based on a lot of experience in that field).. another Dr though may not recommend an MRI and just tell me to take an Advil and come back in two weeks. If I read two op'eds about healthy living.. one by "a popular Instragrammer with 5 million followers" and the other by someone with a PhD in the related field I'll trust the op'ed from the dude with the PhD in the related field. I don't think it's crazy to say I'm not crazy in thinking their (Icon) marketing is flawed and referencing someone else from the industry

I mean there has to be a reasonable litmus somewhere. If a marketing document for an aircraft boasts that "the usual metrics of speed, range, payload, altitude, and complex cockpits" can be ignored I'm going to take issue with that. Illustrating that my opinion isn't crazy by saying "look, this dude who knows planes quite well thinks similarly" at least reflects that I'm not out in left field here. If I quoted Oprah then sure, that would be crazy. 5 generally similar low altitude crashes out of 100 frames, while maybe not strictly statistically significant, does start painting a picture, as did the second Max accident

At least, what we *CAN* agree on, is that the Icon A5 will obey the laws of physics just like any other plane, treadmill, etc.,
 
Tantalum said:
5 generally similar low altitude crashes out of 100 frames, while maybe not strictly statistically significant, does start painting a picture, as did the second Max accident..
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We are not likely to reach a shared understanding of either event.

Nauga,
who doesn't 'paint' with half a palette
 
Tarheelpilot said:
Wasn’t obvious to me.
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Seriously, go back and read some of the posts.

There are a few here who are seriously mistaken about how a steady wind affects an airplane in flight. Martin Renschler’s* recent (#245 above) being just one of the more blatantly in error.

Gusts and shear, which do affect an airplane in flight, are a different matter entirely and just confuse things.


*Martin’s post is his first, and so far only post. So we may be getting trolled.
 
Ryanb said:
Video of it :

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That looked like the worst-planned flight in history from start to finish. Rough water, gusty winds, starting your takeoff roll towards a bunch of 100-foot tall trees, turning during your takeoff roll (because if you keep going straight you're right in the trees). What do you think the chances are they considered which direction they should turn once airborne? My guess is none. Just a disaster. But what a fun plane!
 
Palmpilot said:
What law of physics supports that assertion?
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What I am referring to is inertia (V=M*A). If you fly a square pattern and crab on your cross wind you have no velocity in the direction of the wind. If you then turn downwind, you need to accelerate the plane in the direction of the wind. Until your plane has reached wind speed plus relative speed in that direction, you have less lift.
This is why ground speed matters in this case.
I do agree that if you blindly fly a circle without reference to any ground pattern, the wind has already accelerated you in the direction of the wind. However that is a different case than flying a pattern.
 
Tantalum said:
It's actually not a correct use of appealing to authority fallacy. If someone calls me and tells me they are a police officer and asks for my computer log in and I give it to them then yes, that's an appeal to authority fallacy. If I ask my doctor for their opinion on my health and I trust them then is that also an appeal to authority fallacy? I think not. I'm appealing to their authority, because they are one in that subject matter, it is not a fallacy. Or do you inherently distrust everything your doctor tells you because otherwise believing them would be fallacious?

Referencing the editor of (one of) the largest aviation magazine in the world as a point that my views on Icon having an inappropriate marketing strategy are not at all fallacious. What would have been fallacious is if I referenced some random person.. the media often does this, a professor of english will weigh in on military matters
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I don’t think either of your example is quite right. the fallacy is In concluding that they are right BECAUSE they are an authority. Even if they are right, and they are an authority, it is still a fallacy to say they are right BECAUSE they are an authority. They are right because the facts show they are right, not because they are an expert. I think you are appealing to authority if you accept your doctors advice without understanding why the advice is being given and how they came to that conclusion.
 
Martin Renschler said:
What I am referring to is inertia (V=M*A). If you fly a square pattern and crab on your cross wind you have no velocity in the direction of the wind. If you then turn downwind, you need to accelerate the plane in the direction of the wind. Until your plane has reached wind speed plus relative speed in that direction, you have less lift.
This is why ground speed matters in this case.
I do agree that if you blindly fly a circle without reference to any ground pattern, the wind has already accelerated you in the direction of the wind. However that is a different case than flying a pattern.
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This is incorrect. Even this simple statement is wrong.
If you fly a square pattern and crab on your cross wind you have no velocity in the direction of the wind.
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Martin Renschler said:
What I am referring to is inertia (V=M*A). If you fly a square pattern and crab on your cross wind you have no velocity in the direction of the wind. If you then turn downwind, you need to accelerate the plane in the direction of the wind. Until your plane has reached wind speed plus relative speed in that direction, you have less lift.
This is why ground speed matters in this case.
I do agree that if you blindly fly a circle without reference to any ground pattern, the wind has already accelerated you in the direction of the wind. However that is a different case than flying a pattern.
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If you were actually a pilot, you'd be able to actually fly a pattern on a day with x-wind and observe your theory in action, which FYI will not happen.
 
Tantalum said:
I'm horrified that a surprising amount of people don't get this.


Indeed there is, and I'm sorry but you're one of them. Try this, grab one of those small cheap drones and next time you are on a Delta flight flight in a circle in the plane.. the drone will not care that it's traveling at 600 mph relative to the ground, only the air around it matters, and it will turn around in a circle beautifully
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Misunderstanding of what I was trying to say. I was referring to "turning downwind" rather than making a circle into the medium air. "Turning downwind" is when you turn from base to final. You are flying a pattern which is based on ground reference. Totally different physical case than making a blind circle in the air.
Here is a thought experience: Think flying upwind with the same speed as the wind. You are hovering over a point. Lets say you can instantly turn downwind. What is the relative wind speed then? Does your plane need to accelerate to stay in the air?
 
Martin Renschler said:
What I am referring to is inertia (V=M*A). If you fly a square pattern and crab on your cross wind you have no velocity in the direction of the wind. If you then turn downwind, you need to accelerate the plane in the direction of the wind. Until your plane has reached wind speed plus relative speed in that direction, you have less lift.
This is why ground speed matters in this case.
I do agree that if you blindly fly a circle without reference to any ground pattern, the wind has already accelerated you in the direction of the wind. However that is a different case than flying a pattern.
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Martin Renschler said:
Misunderstanding of what I was trying to say. I was referring to "turning downwind" rather than making a circle into the medium air. "Turning downwind" is when you turn from base to final. You are flying a pattern which is based on ground reference. Totally different physical case than making a blind circle in the air.
Here is a thought experience: Think flying upwind with the same speed as the wind. You are hovering over a point. Lets say you can instantly turn downwind. What is the relative wind speed then? Does your plane need to accelerate to stay in the air?
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So much false information in both of these posts.
 
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