Light Plane Is Top Gun at Design Show

It’s sleeker, lighter and faster.

Known as the Lancair IV, it is a business aircraft designed and marketed by Neico Aviation of Santa Paula.

Its all-composite airframe is faster and 60% more fuel-efficient than those of similarly priced business planes. It can reach a cruising speed of 330 miles per hour because its fuselage is made of composite carbon fibers--strong as steel but 30% lighter than aluminum.

“It’s the state of the art in the aerospace industry,” said Lance Neibauer, Neico Aviation’s president. “This is the first small plane assembled from a kit that uses an all-composite airframe.”

Because of that, it is the star of the three-day Design Engineering Show & Conference/West that began Monday at the Anaheim Convention Center. With 270 exhibitors, the show features a wide swath of new technologies--from a “guided hammer” that prevents smashed thumbs to a diaper beeper that goes off when a toddler wets.

But the talk of the show was the Lancair IV. Composite materials have been used in military aircraft for decades, but Neibauer said it was only in the past several years that they have become practical for general aviation.

While Beech Aircraft in Wichita, Kan., makes an eight-passenger composite aircraft, Neibauer said, the Lancair IV has no direct competitors.

The kit--without the engine or avionics system--costs $38,500.