Icon, whose amphibious seaplane has been the biggest news in the light aircraft world for about six years (during all of which the plane was 1-2 years away from first deliveries), is setting up a factory in Mexico (Avweb).
The FAA approval process for a factory is painful. However, given the labor-intensive production processes used to build airplanes (many unchanged since the 1930s), I continue to be surprised that more work isn’t done in Mexico. Stripping and repainting an airplane is particularly labor-intensive and painful yet most planes operated in the U.S. are repainted in the U.S. (cost range for a private plane: $20,000 to $200,000, depending on size).
One good thing: Airplanes can fly over Donald Trump’s proposed wall! (or the 580 miles of existing border “fence”)
Related:
- Cessna setting up airplane component production in Mexico (2010)
- Icon A5 limps into production surrounded by a phalanx of lawyers
- Icon A5 update from NBAA 2015
- Icon A5 Seaplane follow-up (2012)
- Icon A5 review with shopping video (2010)
Didn’t Cessna make the TTX in Mexico until the wings started delaminating due to poor quality control?
That’s why the wall is stupid. Most illegal immigrants flew here and overstayed their visas.
The wall is stupid because all we really have to do is throw a couple thousand people in jail for six months for employing illegal aliens. Chipotle (TM) could arguably have been fined out of existence a few years ago, well we just need to actually do that for a change.
Nonetheless The Wall has been a highly effective rhetorical point because important ideas need a physical manifestation to visualize. Nobody will care if the wall is built or not. That’s not the point.