Tamarack Aerospace has performed the first three active winglet installations—one on a CitationJet and two on Citation CJ2s—at its new facility in Aiken, South Carolina, the company announced yesterday. Another CitationJet active winglet installation at the center is pending, it added.
Ted Goodspeed, the pilot of the newly modified CitationJet (N331GG), said the light twinjet can now routinely climb to FL410 in 30 minutes at max gross weight thanks to the modification. “The lower drag gives us more excess power,” he noted.
Like Tamarack’s other installation centers in Sandpoint, Idaho, and Oxford, UK, the Aiken facility is able to retrofit CitationJet, CJ1/CJ1+/M2, and CJ2/CJ2+ models with the company’s active winglets in seven to 10 days. The East Coast center provides accessible factory installation of these winglets for operators in the eastern U.S. and South America, according to the company. Tamarack also offers active winglet service at more than 20 authorized service centers across the U.S., South America, and Europe.
Over the last five years, Tamarack has modified more than 100 of the CitationJet family of light jets with its active winglets, which the company claims can reduce fuel usage by up to 33 percent.