ICON Aircraft closed another round of equity financing in June. The new round of investment capital is intended to take ICON through the completion of its ongoing engineering and flight test program as well as the manufacturing phase for the ICON A5 amphibious sport plane.
The company’s $40-million in backlogged sales – the order book has surpassed 400, which means the first two years of production are already pre-sold – was instrumental in the “high investor confidence” in ICON, according to Kirk Hawkins, CEO.
ICON’s flight testing regimen of the A5 will continue through this year. The first public flight demonstration of the A5 is planned at the upcoming EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh later this month. The A5 will fly into Oshkosh for a press conference at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, July 27. Water flying demonstrations are also planned for the A5 later that week, Friday morning, July 31, at the nearby seaplane base.
ICON is pushing out its production start date by nine months. First customer deliveries are now scheduled to begin in the third quarter of 2011. This change was necessary due to the unprecedented crisis within the global capital markets beginning last fall, company officials said.
“While the changes in the capital markets did affect our production start date, the current economic climate has minimal impact on ICON overall,” Hawkins said. “The real economic environment that would affect ICON is more than 4-5 years away given ICON’s current backlog of sales – well beyond the expected horizon of the current climate.”
For more information: www.iconaircraft.com.
