Developer and manufacturer of lightweight aircraft, BlackWing Sweden, has received the highest distinction as winner of the Red Dot Award for Product Design 2016. The fuselage and wings are manufactured using TeXtreme Spread Tow carbon fiber fabric – which the company claims is 15% more rigid than conventional twill fabric.

BlackWing’s lightweight aircraft, now also available in a microlight version, stood out as one of this year’s most outstanding products. Manufacturers and designers from 57 nations had registered about 5,200 products, submitting these for assessment by an independent expert panel of judges in the Ruhr area in Germany. The jury judged each entry according to criteria such as degree of innovation, formal quality, functionality and ecological compatibility. A Red Dot: Best of the Best 2016 – is a distinction reserved for only the very best in a specific category, and earned by just 1.5% of all entries.

The aircraft is designed by founder and CEO Niklas Anderberg. After gaining extensive aerospace engineering experience working for Boeing and Saab Aerospace, Niklas set out to change the rules on how small aircrafts are developed. The company produces all the parts, except the engine and avionics, “in-house” in Sweden. The short lead time makes them extremely flexible to make changes in the design for production optimization while maintaining a competitive position on the market.

The aircraft is aerodynamically clean and fast but at the same time capable of slow flights with best-in-class stall characteristics. “For us to be able to design the aircraft as we have done and to reach the desired weight targets with the outstanding performance we needed, using TeXtreme was the obvious choice of materials, if not the only choice,” says Anderberg.

TeXtreme has over ten years of experience manufacturing and testing real-world applications of Spread Tow reinforcement technology. This knowledge, combined with flexible production capabilities and access to the largest global capacity of Spread Tow fabrics, allows the company to provide customers rapid delivery of tailor-made fabrics, resulting in reduced time-to-market for their products.

The Red Dot Design Award is an international product and communication design prize awarded by the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen, in Essen, Germany. The Red Dot: Best of the Best laureates were honored at the formal presentation of the Red Dot Trophy on stage in front of 1,200 guests at the Aalto-Theater in Essen on July 4th, 2016.”