We arrived at Oshkosh on Tuesday after stopping in Buffalo to pick up Thurman Thomas (a VIP guest of EAA). Arriving in a turbojet IFR meant that we didn’t have to follow any of the traditional Oshkosh “look for the water tower” and “rock your wings” procedures. After landing Runway 27 we turned right and parked and were whisked away to a little caravan of RVs. Then we were given a tour of the convention by an unassuming volunteer, Jeffrey Gentz, who lives in the area and has been volunteering at Oshkosh for 30 years. We had to ask if he had any flying experience himself. “Mostly on the MD11 at UPS,” he noted, “where I also do training, but I’ve also flown the 757/767.” Jeff delivered us finally to a Schweizer 333 for a helicopter loop around the grounds.
We arrived back at the core of the vendor exhibits at about 6 pm, just as tens of thousands of people were walking back from the flightline where they’d been viewing the airshow. The legacy piston airplane manufacturers, Piper and Cessna, had shut down their booths and gone home. Tens of thousands of potential customers streamed past, some stopping to look at the parked airplanes but there were no salespeople to answer questions. The Cirrus booth, on the other hand, was fully staffed and engaged with the eager public. It is not hard to understand how Cirrus took 50 percent of the market away from the legacy companies.
The traditional Oshkosh mishap starts with a guy spending three years in his garage building an airplane. During this time he does not practice flying because he is busy turning wrenches. Anxious to show off his newly completed aircraft, he gets in the plane in North Carolina and embarks on his first real cross-country flight. The plane is wrecked at some point during this trip, though not always at Oshkosh itself, which has long wide runways. This year was a little different, with a $6 million Beechcraft Premier jet pancaked into the ground and split in half (story). Fortunately both pilot and passenger seem to be recovering well.
Oshkosh is not short on infectious enthusiasm. Hundreds of thousands of people come to explore their dreams of flight. Hundreds of startup companies set up booths to show off their wares. This is a market strangled by government regulation and, at least in the U.S., clouded by the economic depression (the sectors of the U.S. that the Politburo has favored in the latest Five Year Plan are government, Wall Street, and health care, none of which are natural users of light aircraft (government folks can stay in their state or in Washington, D.C.; doctors can stay in their hospitals; Wall Streeters mostly stay in Manhattan or head out to Shanghai; a regional real estate developer or retailer would be a natural customer for a light airplane)). Yet entrepreneurs show up with a fiberglass mockup saying “we expect to be certified in 2-3 years” and “we just need to close the next round of financing”.
Some energetic young people from Korea showed up their new four-seat airplane, to be certified in two more years. The plane is made of plastic, exactly likely a Cirrus SR22. It has four seats, exactly like a Cirrus SR22. It has a turbocharged Continential IO-550 engine, exactly like one version of a Cirrus SR22. I asked how much it would cost. “Less than $700,000,” was the response. So the plan is to make a virtual copy of the market leader’s airplane and sell it for the same price. In what other industry would people persist with this kind of plan?
An industry veteran in a new company (he’s a friend so he’ll remain nameless) was kind enough to talk to me about his new company. I asked “Not to be rude, but who would be stupid enough to invest in a yet-to-be-certified design? Think of the risks of the plane being delayed by the FAA and then the risks of liability once the plane goes out the door.” He challenged me to name an investment that would be lower risk. I said “Pizza Hut franchises in Brazil and China.” He replied that a Pizza Hut would face competition from local restaurants and therefore an investment in his company was far safer.
The company that might change the industry is ICON Aircraft. The PR, Web site, brochures, and industrial design are all competitive with what an automobile manufacturer might accomplish. If you called up Central Casting and said “I need a square-jawed business executive who used to be a fighter pilot” they would send over someone just like Kirk Hawkins, the founder and CEO. He stood up and gave a talk reminiscent of Tom Cruise’s motivation speeches in the movie Magnolia. He skipped over questions such as “Given that seaplanes cannot typically be operated safely even by 20,000-hour airline pilots, how are your customers going to avoid wrecking all of these?” (30 percent of ICON position holders have no flying experience and are planning to get their Sport Pilot certificate after 30 hours of training and jump in (an idea encouraged by the ICON brochures)) or “What happens when you put the wheels down by mistake and land in the water?” (answer with every other amphibious airplane: the plane flips over and often the occupants drown, which is why amphib insurance costs a lot more than helicopter insurance). The plane/boat costs $139,000 and seats two.
The Achilles Heel of the ICON is that everything is optional, even stuff that you would need such as wheels. This will presumably drive up the cost but more importantly will drive up the empty weight. The “useful load” will be 420 lbs, typically equipped. That includes two passengers, baggage, oars, life jackets, headsets, water emergency gear, etc., etc., and fuel. The tanks hold about 20 gallons and gasoline weighs 6 lbs. per gallon. The legal full fuel payload is therefore 300 lbs. for a two-seater. I predict that this airplane, if it is ever certified as a Light Sport Airplane and delivered, will almost invariably be operated over gross. Therefore the customers won’t be able to rely on any of the book numbers for runway length and stall speed. The engineers seem to have anticipated this and the most prominent instrument in the panel is a military-style angle of attack indicator. This will show how close the wing is to stalling, irrespective of how overloaded the plane is.
Experienced seaplane pilots at the convention did not like the ICON. “For about the same price, I can buy a used Lake Amphibian [four-seat certified seaplane]” they would note. I think that ICON stands a good chance of expanding the market, something that Light Sport has thus far failed to do (mostly Light Sport pilots are ancient guys who are expert certified airplane pilots but who can’t hold an FAA medical anymore).
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