bullwinkle
Pattern Altitude
Hmm, I disagree almost completely. You bet your ass it looks fun, and more importantly safe. Plus it was actually built with materials and techniques that aren't older than my grandparents.
So let's just clear some misinformation up here:
200k for an aircraft that will land on land or water, has a parachute, some of the best anti-stall characteristics ever created, doesn't cost you fifty ****ing dollars worth of fuel every hour, that has current avionics, fly's over 100kts and you can put on a trailer keep at home? Really?
You have fun paying for that crusty T-hangar with all the birds shatting and making nests on your airplane every month, looking at those analog gauges that you love paying to repair and flying that airplane that was built while Nixon was still in office. I'll take the Icon.
(Please don't take personally, I'm using your statement - which is a common one - to prove a point. It is not directed at you. I'm trying to get people to look at these things a little differently.)
Well...you are off base on a few things.
1) The Icon does *not* cruise over 100kt. It cruises at 85kt, top speed is 95kt. In other words, very slow for a modern composite LSA. In fact, the slowest modern composite 100hp LSA I've ever heard of. In comparison, my CTSW cruises easily at 115-120kt.
http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All-News/2015/June/18/Icon-A5-is-for-real
2) What does the airplane type have to do with whether you are in a crusty old T-hanger full of bird droppings? Unless you are saying that "If you can afford an Icon you can afford a nicer hangar". That doesn't sound like a plus for the Icon, it sounds like a plus for having more money.
3) Sure you can stick it on a trailer. But I for one don't want to subject a $250k airplane to rock chips and traffic accidents every time I want to fly. But I guess that goes back to "just have enough money that it doesn't bother you to trash it"...
4) As for "looking at those analog gauges that you love paying to repair"...have you actually looked at the Icon cockpit? All of the flight instruments are analog:
I'm not sure that others are the ones that need to look at these things a little differently.