ICON Aircraft
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| Private | |
| Industry | Aviation |
| Founded | 2006 |
| Founders | Kirk Hawkins Steen Strand |
| Headquarters | Vacaville, California, USA |
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Key people
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Kirk Hawkins (CEO) Steen Strand (President) Chris King (CFO) Matthew Gionta (CTO) |
| Products | Light-sport aircraft |
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Number of employees
|
100+ (2015) |
| Website | www.iconaircraft.com |
ICON Aircraft is a privately held American aircraft design and production company. It is currently working on the production of the ICON A5, an amphibious light sport aircraft.
ICON Aircraft was founded in response to the 2004 Federal Aviation Administration establishment of the light-sport aircraft (LSA) class of aircraft and Sport Pilot certificate class of pilot. Kirk Hawkins and Steen Strand founded the company in 2006. Hawkins had previously flown F-16s in the United States Air Force and Boeing 757s for American Airlines. Strand's background is in product design, marketing, and finance, and he founded Freebord, a skateboard company. The two met at Stanford University in a Product Design class in 1993.
A proof of concept aircraft was built in 2007-2008, and made its first flight in July 2008. The company publicly launched the A5 in Los Angeles at a private event on June 11, 2008. ICON has also acknowledged the possibility of releasing additional models in the future, but maintains that it will focus on the light-sport aircraft market.
From 2008 to 2014, the proof of concept aircraft flew more than 700 development flights, and the construction of the first production aircraft began in early 2014. It made its first flight in July 2014 and the company has announced that the first customer deliveries are expected in May 2015.
ICON Aircraft has completed four rounds of equity financing. It completed its A round in June 2006 and its B round in July 2008. A $25 million C round was closed in June 2011[3] and a $60 million D round was announced in June 2013.
In May 2016 the company announced that only 20 aircraft would be completed in 2016, instead of the previously planned 175 and that all these would go to training centers. Customer deliveries were announced as being delayed until 2017 at the earliest, due to the need to improve the manufacturing processes to build the aircraft design. The company also announced that, as a result of issues involving starting production, it would lay off 60 employees and terminate 90 contractors, leaving 160 employees at work. The CEO indicated that the company has the investors and funding required to continue operations through this period, before production is increased and the company can become profitable.
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Wikipedia