Icon A5 price converging with Cessna Caravan on floats

by philg

Avweb reports that the years-delayed two-seat Icon A5 seaplane will soon be going out the door at $389,000. That’s up from $180,000. At this rate, by 2020 the A5 will cost the same as a good used 10-seat turbine-powered Cessna Caravan on floats. The airplane is already more expensive than this Grumman Albatross on controller.com (the Albatross is about 20 times the size of the Icon A5! See Wikipedia.)

7 thoughts on “Icon A5 price converging with Cessna Caravan on floats”

  3. I must say that the price of the icon has gotten utterly ridiculous, for various reasons. However, I would advise anyone with any sense to never board an amphib Caravan that cost only $400,000. I realize that’s not exactly what you’re saying in your blurb, but that’s what the title implies. An albatross is cheap because 1) you have to be able to fly it, and 2) experimental restricted is a horribly restrictive category to try to fly am airplane in. If you want an albatross you can actually fly places and take passengers in then you need to drop $800k – $1.2M.

  4. GSea: What I was trying to say in the original post was that, at the rate the price of the Icon A5 is rising, it won’t be $40,000 in 2020. It will be closer to $1 million.

    The former military Albatrosses are tightly restricted? Everyone on board has to be crew? It wouldn’t be legal to take friends and family on personal trips? How do the charities that operate B-17s and other warbirds manage to get paying customers in there?

  5. I knew a young pilot who flew a Caravan floatplane for a Saudi prince. The prince had a huge yacht and a Boeing 767, which he would fly to the vicinity of the yacht. The Caravan shuttled the visitors to/from the yacht, and was either hoisted aboard or dispatched to the next port.

    It had ferry tanks for the cabin, and he flew it transatlantic twice, roughly following the Lindbergh route (may have stopped in the Azores). Try that in your Icon!

    The pilot lost that gig after 9/11. The prince relocated and the yacht quit calling in the USA.

  6. I realize that aircraft are different than cars because they have to be continually maintained, but a 60+ year old plane is not an apples to apples comparison to a brand new plane. You can also buy a 10 year old Mercedes Benz S Class for less than the cost of a brand new Smart for Two.

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