Icon A5 Purchase Contract Details - Just Awful

fiveoboy01 said:
His motivation is irrelevant, the purchase contract words are right there and so far no one has refuted them as fabricated.
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That was my thought.

I'm willing to give Jim Campbell the benefit of the doubt - that his somewhat aberrant behavior/reporting about Cirrus was the exception rather than the rule.

Until proven otherwise, of course.
 
fiveoboy01 said:
His motivation is irrelevant, the purchase contract words are right there and so far no one has refuted them as fabricated.
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That.

He doesn't have to try to make icon look bad, their own contract does that in spades
 
I have a friend whose cousin worked at ICON. My friend says this guy left when he realized that all his engineering input was being stonewalled, and the entire enterprise was being run by PR types and not engineers or airplane guys.

This is obviously rumor mill material, but I consider it reliable. And it certainly matches up with what we've seen. Their Airventure display was all sizzle and no steak, as a prominent example.

I particularly laugh at them nominating themselves for awards and then humbly saying how honored they are to be nominated. Brilliant marketing!
 
fiveoboy01 said:
His motivation is irrelevant, the purchase contract words are right there and so far no one has refuted them as fabricated.
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And that is perfectly reasonable, as long as his allegations are limited to items that can be independently verified.

The Cirrus case is a good example. Campbell complaining about Cirrus suing him, well, we all saw the court papers. Campbell accusing Cirrus of forgery... well, that would have been settled in the trial Campbell avoided. Campbell accusing Cirrus of terrorism...well, we're ALL still waiting for proof on that one. Campbell being correct about #1 DOESN'T mean he was correct about #3.

Ron Wanttaja
 
FastEddieB said:
That was my thought.

I'm willing to give Jim Campbell the benefit of the doubt - that his somewhat aberrant behavior/reporting about Cirrus was the exception rather than the rule.

Until proven otherwise, of course.
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Here's something one of his targets posted over twenty years ago:

http://www.ousterhout.net/zoom/chuckz12.html

Note that the author, Chuck Slusarczyk, was subsequently named to the EAA Hall of Fame in 1999.

Ron Wanttaja
 
bullwinkle said:
I have a friend whose cousin worked at ICON. My friend says this guy left when he realized that all his engineering input was being stonewalled, and the entire enterprise was being run by PR types and not engineers or airplane guys.

This is obviously rumor mill material, but I consider it reliable. And it certainly matches up with what we've seen. Their Airventure display was all sizzle and no steak, as a prominent example.

I particularly laugh at them nominating themselves for awards and then humbly saying how honored they are to be nominated. Brilliant marketing!
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Well, I wouldn't want a company of mine to be run by most of the engineers I've known, lol. They aren't usually the best at making profits and timely business decisions . . . they do design some innovative stuff though! The problem with the line of thinking that an aircraft company should be run by engineers and "airplane guys" is that most of the light GA market is stagnant, so appealing to other airlplane guys isn't working all that well. In comes Icon with their PR-team and pitching their aircraft to a different market segment, and all of the sudden it's incorrect? I'd definitely take the cousin's friend's report with a large grain of salt. I don't think Icon is anything particularly great in terms of the value of their product, but that doesn't mean their company structure is poor because it isn't run by engineers at the top. Look at where Saab vehicles are today, and it was supposedly F-16 engineers on that one.
 
SoonerAviator said:
Well, I wouldn't want a company of mine to be run by most of the engineers I've known, lol. They aren't usually the best at making profits and timely business decisions . . . they do design some innovative stuff though! The problem with the line of thinking that an aircraft company should be run by engineers and "airplane guys" is that most of the light GA market is stagnant, so appealing to other airlplane guys isn't working all that well. In comes Icon with their PR-team and pitching their aircraft to a different market segment, and all of the sudden it's incorrect? I'd definitely take the cousin's friend's report with a large grain of salt. I don't think Icon is anything particularly great in terms of the value of their product, but that doesn't mean their company structure is poor because it isn't run by engineers at the top. Look at where Saab vehicles are today, and it was supposedly F-16 engineers on that one.
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I think the point was that the company was so overrun with marketing concerns that the engineering issues were neglected or ignored. I don't think anybody thinks that should happen in a company making, you know...airplanes. :D
 
SoonerAviator said:
Well, I wouldn't want a company of mine to be run by most of the engineers I've known, lol. They aren't usually the best at making profits and timely business decisions . . . they do design some innovative stuff though! The problem with the line of thinking that an aircraft company should be run by engineers and "airplane guys" is that most of the light GA market is stagnant, so appealing to other airlplane guys isn't working all that well. In comes Icon with their PR-team and pitching their aircraft to a different market segment, and all of the sudden it's incorrect? I'd definitely take the cousin's friend's report with a large grain of salt. I don't think Icon is anything particularly great in terms of the value of their product, but that doesn't mean their company structure is poor because it isn't run by engineers at the top. Look at where Saab vehicles are today, and it was supposedly F-16 engineers on that one.
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What about the claim that they're stonewalling their engineers? If true, that doesn't sound very smart. Wasn't something like that a central issue in the Challenger disaster?

Just because a company isn't being run by engineers doesn't mean they should be ignored.
 
Palmpilot said:
What about the claim that they're stonewalling their engineers? If true, that doesn't sound very smart. Wasn't something like that a central issue in the Challenger disaster?

Just because a company isn't being run by engineers doesn't mean they should be ignored.
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I'm not discounting that part of it, but I've been around plenty of projects where an engineer gets mad when his ideas aren't accepted. We'd need a lot more detail on what was "stonewalled" in order to make much of a judgment call. Was it something as significant as a better airfoil design which had better stall characteristics, or was it something mundane like the position of the door handle or the paint spec?
 
I'm sure there is plenty of data online, but "zoom" has been making a name for himself as Ron stated above for years. He had a falling out at Sun/Fun years ago if I recall as well, and published criticism and attacks on them for ever.

I've no examples to quote, just memories. I'm sure google can find more.
 
Farmboy said:
Jim Campbell is often referred to in very negative terms, and his style of “reporting” can be very opinionated to say the least. When he bites into something he doesn’t agree with then all sorts of crap can spew forth. It’s up to the readers to level the drama and read with a grain of salt.

But that said, it’s worth a courtesy review of the article. The basis of the article is probably fairly correct. We've known for awhile that the performance doesn't match a Searey, but the form over function has sales appeal to the non-pilots of the world. That all being said, even as it is, once out there it should help bring GA into the limelight more than it is now. Hopefully it will all be positive.
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You may not like areo news and if not you can check out the article on the AOPA site http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/...n-gambit?WT.mc_id=160401epilot&WT.mc_sect=tts

There is a discussion brewing about it on the Lawyer Pilot Bar Assn forum. The real questions are 1) Will the market reject the plane because of the contract? Right now the AOPA article says they have 200 deposits and Icon reports that 40 have signed. The Head of the company reportedly said if you don't want to sign we don't want you as a customer. 2) Whether it would hold up in court.
 
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I've seen a sudden up-tick in the availability of Icon options in the marketplace lately. Could very well be the contract.
 
Paul Bertorelli is not very complimentary either:

http://www.avweb.com/blogs/insider/Icon-A-Dark-View-of-the-Customer-Relationship-225931-1.html

And not just the contract:

"Icon has clearly taken a long time to develop the airplane because the company wanted it to emerge as close to perfect as possible. Its promotion and sales material has been consistent with the perception of quality and it has attempted to fiercely control its image to the point of declining requests for flight demos from media outlets critical of it. Notably, that includes AVweb."
 
They're shooting themselves in the foot.

No sane person(especially most pilots whom tend to be fickle) is going to sign that agreement. Either that or they want an A5 so bad they don't care about the terms.
 
fiveoboy01 said:
They're shooting themselves in the foot.

No sane person(especially most pilots whom tend to be fickle) is going to sign that agreement. Either that or they want an A5 so bad they don't care about the terms.
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I could also imagine some folks just signing the contract with no intention to honor it, I'd imagine some Mid East types where the contracts arnt worth a dime and rich westerns, don't care, just put the layers on it types.
 
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I would not sign a contract with those restrictions.

Further, it's entirely possible that Icon will get the life limits imposed in the Type Certificate, and some of the other restrictions, too. The FAA required life limits be put in the TC. For example, the Commanders have life limits on the wings (though much, much higher hours), and Cirrus has limits, too. Even Hartzell got into the act on some of their props, making overhaul mandatory at certain calendar & hour times.

But the transfer restrictions and so forth? And the fees? Nope, not for me. I'd build a plane long, long before I accepted those conditions.
 
What makes the Icon that much better than a Searey?
Or a Seamax?
 
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AdamZ said:
2) Whether it would hold up in court.
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A lot of silly things hold up when signed by two people not under duress. However, I wouldn't expect that any of these provisions will carry over to a subsequent buyer of the flying jetski. Their relationship to the manufacturer is governed by general product liability rules (as applicable to aircraft e.g. with gara limitations). Sure icon can go after the initial buyer for their $5000, but that won't stop the secondary buyer from going after them. Also, the initial buyer may have been an LLC that gets rolled up after sale of the aircraft. Good luck collecting.

As they want the buyer to acknowledge this as a negotiated contract, someone should send it back to them with all the nonsense redlined.

Some of their provisions make sense. Having initial buyers sign acknowledging that there is no service network is imho acceptable. Also, spelling out that the approvals are limited to the US makes sense. I can't get too worked up about that.
 
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weilke said:
A lot of silly things hold up when signed by two people not under duress. However, I wouldn't expect that any of these provisions will carry over to a subsequent buyer of the flying jetski. Their relationship to the manufacturer is governed by general product liability rules (as applicable to aircraft e.g. with gara limitations). Sure icon can go after the initial buyer for their $5000, but that won't stop the secondary buyer from going after them. Also, the initial buyer may have been an LLC that gets rolled up after sale of the aircraft. Good luck collecting.

As they want the buyer to acknowledge this as a negotiated contract, someone should send it back to them with all the nonsense redlined.

Some of their provisions make sense. Having initial buyers sign acknowledging that there is no service network is imho acceptable. Also, spelling out that the approvals are limited to the US makes sense. I can't get too worked up about that.
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But the contract states that Icon has to authorize the transfer, and presumably that authorization won't happen unless the secondary buyer agrees to the same conditions as the original owner.

I still think all of these provisions are a "poison pill" for the first position holders and the company will "see the light" just in time to deliver the later (and higher priced) positions. Really bad business practice IMO.
 
fiveoboy01 said:
He could have done without the extensive self-serving rant at the beginning of the article.
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No, he really couldn't; by that, I mean that he is mentally incapable of just letting the story run on its merits, without injecting himself/his opinions into the fray.

I had limited success with serving as editor/gatekeeper to some of his wilder rants while I was at ANN. It's pretty clear that no one who's there now is willing or capable of serving that role (in hindsight, it caused far more aggravation and grief than it was worth for me, too.)
 
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weilke said:
As they want the buyer to acknowledge this as a negotiated contract, someone should send it back to them with all the nonsense redlined.
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Yeah, I had a similar thought. Statements that have been attributed to them suggest that contract terms are not, in fact, negotiable.
 
Palmpilot said:
Yeah, I had a similar thought. Statements that have been attributed to them suggest that contract terms are not, in fact, negotiable.
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If a buyer got such a statement back from them in writing, it would be 'litigation gold' if it ever came to a dispute. The moment they acknowledge that the contract terms were in fact not negotiatble, they may find that the court reads those provisions in the least favorable way to the company.
 
weilke said:
If a buyer got such a statement back from them in writing, it would be 'litigation gold' if it ever came to a dispute. The moment they acknowledge that the contract terms were in fact not negotiatble, they may find that the court reads those provisions in the least favorable way to the company.
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I wonder what was in the contract when the deposit was given. Did Icon have a clause in there stating they could modify the contract in any manner they wanted?
 
Brad Z said:
But the contract states that Icon has to authorize the transfer, and presumably that authorization won't happen unless the secondary buyer agrees to the same conditions as the original owner.
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They can write a lot of things into the contract, if the original purchaser chooses to ignore them, their only remedy is to deal with the original purchaser, not the surbsequent ones. This is a LSA, many of them will be sold by the original purchasers estate representatives. The only thing Icon can get is $5000 + interest, they have no control over someone elses property once it has been legally sold. The only way they could have achieved that would be through a lease or licensing deal, similar to how GM only 'leased' their initial electric car offering in the 1990s. Once the cars had fulfilled their buerocratic requirement, GM pulled the cars back and ran them through the shredder.

Now they can choose not to support any subsequent buyers that were not factory approved, not sure whether there is any legal concept that guarantees you factory support of a purchased product. Lots of opportunity to rack up billable hours.

And I agree, this may harm them more than it's worth. People who can write a 250k check for a toy didn't get there by being stupid (trust-fund babies excluded).
 
weilke said:
If a buyer got such a statement back from them in writing, it would be 'litigation gold' if it ever came to a dispute. The moment they acknowledge that the contract terms were in fact not negotiatble, they may find that the court reads those provisions in the least favorable way to the company.
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I doubt they would say that in so many words, but they could demonstrate it through their actions, e.g., by declining any and all attempts to negotiate specific provisions.
 
Palmpilot said:
I doubt they would say that in so many words, but they could demonstrate it through their actions, e.g., by declining any and all attempts to negotiate specific provisions.
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In writing it would be great. If 5 years from now, the buyer can produce a series of his requests for amendments delivered to the correct notice address and the companies non-responses, it may be well sufficient to demonstrate that this was not a negotiating process.
 
flightwriter said:
No, he really couldn't; by that, I mean that he is mentally incapable of just letting the story run on its merits, without injecting himself/his opinions into the fray.
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Lol, when I read that post I just thought to myself 'no he couldn't'. It is the very nature of the disease he was diagnosed with in the 70s that makes it impossible to accept that something is not about him.
 
weilke said:
They can write a lot of things into the contract, if the original purchaser chooses to ignore them, their only remedy is to deal with the original purchaser, not the surbsequent ones. This is a LSA, many of them will be sold by the original purchasers estate representatives. The only thing Icon can get is $5000 + interest, they have no control over someone elses property once it has been legally sold. The only way they could have achieved that would be through a lease or licensing deal, similar to how GM only 'leased' their initial electric car offering in the 1990s. Once the cars had fulfilled their buerocratic requirement, GM pulled the cars back and ran them through the shredder.

Now they can choose not to support any subsequent buyers that were not factory approved, not sure whether there is any legal concept that guarantees you factory support of a purchased product. Lots of opportunity to rack up billable hours.

And I agree, this may harm them more than it's worth. People who can write a 250k check for a toy didn't get there by being stupid (trust-fund babies excluded).
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As a buyer for that aircraft sold by an estate, I'm not so sure I'd be comfortable with buying a plane that violates a contract with the manufacturer, and like you said, might even result in loss of support. Considering ICON is attempting to control so much of the process, the airframe could arguably be worthless if the manufacturer won't support something life-limited. On top of that, the insurance companies may not even want to insure you.

I'm not aware of any law that requires a manufacturer to support a product. The best one can do is to sue the manufacturer for breach of contract, etc.

If the company not supporting the transfer to a second owner results in the aircraft eventually being unairworthy, the second owner will end up with a very expensive paperweight.
 
bullwinkle said:
ICON seems to have plenty of lawyers on staff...how long before ICON hits ANN with a "cease and desist" letter claiming "restraint of trade"? :D
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It'd be cheaper to just take out some advertising. That'd end the criticism.

Ron Wanttaja
 
wanttaja said:
It'd be cheaper to just take out some advertising. That'd end the criticism.

Ron Wanttaja
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But what about everyone else. Even AOPA mentioned it with the journalistic version of raised eyebrows (that's about as scathing as they're going to get with anyone in the industry).
 
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Congrats Icon! I love your PR videos, and you have a nifty new design. I hope I get to see one parked next to a Moult Taylor aerocar someday in a museum. I think we can all understand a fairly airtight liability release, but the rest of it is just crap...

I used to be your biggest fan... Thanks for crushing that dream!
 
How much were they with the pre-purchase deposit? How much are they without? Is this really a way to weasel out of the pre-purchase agreements? If that's all they're trying to do, that's a ****ty thing to do. Guess they could lay off some of their lawyers and marketing department to make up for the lost sales.
 
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