The new ICON aircraft is a lightweight, foldable airplane that’s probably the closest thing we’ve got to a flying car. Pull it to your desired takeoff point, a beach, a strip of grass (it’s above needing things like runways) — and fly away. What makes it remarkable is its minimal requirements. There’s fuel, sure, but that’s about the size of it.
“The A5 was created to be the ultimate expression of the freedom, fun, and adventure of aviation,” a rep from ICON said in a statement. “Having lived and breathed the A5 over the course of its development, I can confidently say that the finished product delivers on that mission in spades.”
That doesn’t look like an overstatement and this definitely reminds us of what we wanted when we were kids: to fly free. If it’s indicative of anything — and we’d like to believe it is — it’s surely that the future of personal aviation is alive and well and living in the small fuselages of super durable aircraft. The key might not be to create a car that can fly, but to create a plane that can fly almost anywhere. Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.
For now, though, we need a lake.
