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Can anyone in this group provide what the differences are between the different MYs? I know MY17 and MY18 had a number of improvements (NLG, brake system, pedals etc.) that are easy to look up but what changed between MY18 and MY19?
•MY17—Serial numbers 00001 through 00020
•MY18—Serial numbers 00021 through 00109
•MY19—Serial numbers 00110+

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The First 20 preceded a lot of improvements with the majority of them available as an upgrade. The biggest fear I would have with the first 20 is: what do we not know? What wire will chafe or bulkhead will buckle. They have been flying a lot so the aircraft are definitely past the front of the bathtub reliability curve. the FY18s also had a TON of SBs but all that is behind us. the big drawback of the Founder's Edition is the impossibility of using a G3X. I think they look great and fly wonderfully. If I were to buy a 2022 and beyond, I would be sure to get one with G3X and AP.

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Thanks for that! Is the G3X out because it is physically impossible or because Icon won't give the approval? Aside from G3X and AP, did MY19 have anything notable one can't see from the outside?

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Is the G3X out because it is physically impossible or because Icon won't give the approval?

I doubt very much that it’s physically impossible. Perhaps complicated and involved. The other reason could be motivation to upgrade to the newer model.

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The folks at Icon said it would necessitate a complete teardown of the aircraft and replacement of most of the harnesses. Plus I would assume mounting structures would need to be bonded for the servos. They thought the cost would be north of 140K.

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I know I saw it somewhere. This is from Great Lakes Icon’s website.

Autopilot (Coming Soon)

• Conversion for Legacy Icon A5 aircraft with the Garmin 796

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Let's hope that becomes reality!

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Just wondering how often do you actually use the autopilot in your A5’s? I fly a 796 equipped A5 and don’t feel like I’m missing out on not having the autopilot.
Nearly all of my flights are low altitude sight seeing flights which is what the A5 is best at, so autopilot would take away from how much fun the A5 is to fly. I’ve flown longer cross country flights and still enjoy hand flying the plane, even at altitude.
Such a fun plane to fly!

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My thoughts are if you do a lot of cross country trips, it’s nice to have the option. While hand flying is fun, it can also be a nuisance for a long flight. The question then becomes how much are you willing to pay for that option?

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My thoughts are if you do a lot of cross country trips, it’s nice to have the option. While hand flying is fun, it can also be a nuisance for a long flight. The question then becomes how much are you willing to pay for that option?

I would have much preferred a G3X to the 796, with or without an AP. When I picked ours up in Vacaville the week of July 4th, 2019, I spent a day doing transition training at Lake Berryessa and one other nearby lake and then headed all the way across the country to Martha's Vineyard, then our summer home. By the time I was there I had to leave it in Bedford MA (at the time the nearest service center) for its 25 hour checkup and changeover of the oil, etc. (something nobody bothered to tell me about ahead of time, but that's another story).

That was a lot of time hand flying over three days up to as high as 13,500' MSL in, over, through and around a bunch of different weather, including a lot of summer convective activity and crossing through three different weather systems. Despite being previously almost exclusively a cross-country flyer (on AP) I didn't find it too taxing. I thought the plane was very well balanced and it was one or two finger flying most of the time even with a bunch of summer updrafts to keep me focusing on maintaining a level altitude. I then later flew it to Georgia (as the Vineyard started to go COVID stupid and we bailed out of there), and ultimately to Texas. Since then I have flown it to Dallas and back a couple times, which is (almost 200 nm each way) without missing an AP. None of those long trips were problematic to me without an AP, and I would not have guessed that ahead of time.

I won't ever see this as a cross country plane, despite all that CC time in it, and for what it's really made for, an AP is useless extra weight, IMO. It would still be nice to convert over to the G3X, though...

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Thanks for all the great comments everyone!