ICON Aircraft achieved an important milestone with a successful maiden test flight of the ICON A5 amphibious sport plane. ICON’s team of engineers completed the full-scale prototype flight at an undisclosed lake in California.

The versatile A5 has a folding wing design for easy transport and storage as well as retractable landing gear for flying off land and water. It is set to undergo a series of test flights throughout the next year with a view to putting the finishing touches on the design and building a pre-production model for Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and ASTM compliance. Production is expected to commence in late 2010.

“Everything went as well as an initial test flight possibly could go; so I was very pleased,” said test pilot Karkow, a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots. “The aircraft flew exceptionally well and met or exceeded our design expectations. The A5 seems to be a great aircraft right out of the box.”