The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2015–2026
Blackwing's visible-carbon ultralight wins Red Dot Best of the Best 2026
Swedish ultralight Blackwing leaves its TeXtreme carbon weave clear-coated as the exterior design — and takes Red Dot's top Product Design honour in 2026.
Blackwing Sweden AB
What it had to solve
Ultralight aircraft were functional machines for hobbyists — light, but rarely beautiful and never desirable. Founder Niklas Anderberg, an aeronautical engineer who worked at Saab, believed the category deserved a machine that looked as good as it flew.
How it works
Ultralight aircraft have always been judged on numbers — weight, speed, glide — and rarely on how they look or feel. Niklas Anderberg, an aeronautical engineer who studied at KTH in Stockholm and worked at Saab, thought the category deserved more: a machine with the elegance of a glider, the range of a touring aircraft, and the desirability of a sports car.
Blackwing builds almost everything itself in a 3,000-square-metre facility at Landskrona airfield. The result is the BW650: a 375kg two-seater with an elliptical wing, retractable carbon landing gear, a low-cut canopy for outstanding visibility, and fuselage and wings made from Swedish TeXtreme carbon fibre left clear-coated, so the weave itself becomes the exterior design.
The bet on design paid off twice — in performance, with 2023 world speed records for ultralights at 398.74 km/h closed circuit and 413.28 km/h straight course, and in recognition, when the 2026 Red Dot jury awarded the aircraft Best of the Best, the top honour in Product Design, praising its consistently implemented aerodynamic lines.
Why it lands
- Design was treated as the product, not a coat of paint: the clear-coated carbon weave is simultaneously structure and identity.
- The performance numbers — world records, 375kg empty weight — proved the aesthetics weren't bought at the cost of function; the two reinforced each other.
- Doing nearly all design and manufacturing in-house let the team control details a supplier chain would have compromised.
- Best of the Best is the Red Dot's top distinction, so the idea was validated against an international jury, not just the founder's taste.
What it did
The 2026 Red Dot jury gave the aircraft Best of the Best, the highest distinction in Product Design, praising its consistently executed aerodynamic lines; the 375kg machine had already set 2023 world speed records for its class (398.74 km/h closed circuit, 413.28 km/h straight course).
What you can take
When a category competes only on specs, design is the moat: make the engineering visible and the cockpit inviting, and the product stops being a tool and becomes something people want to own and show.
Since then
After the 2026 Best of the Best, Blackwing is preparing for certification in a higher European weight class without changing the airframe, exploring tailored TeXtreme solutions to reduce material waste, and marketing the aircraft as both a record-setting machine and a design object — under the company's own slogan, 'Average is not an option'.
Sources
- BlackWing and Belle-V: Excellent product design is not a matter of dimensions
- Red Dot Design Award: BLACKWING
- BLACKWING — Average is not an option
- BLACKWING x TeXtreme — Customer Story
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