Tamarack Aerospace (Booth 1770, Static AD_308) said the market for its Airbus A320 narrowbody airliner load-alleviating winglets could be as much as $10 billion. It also struck a deal with Ampaire for winglets for electric-conversion airplanes and continues to flight-test wingletted King Airs.

According to Tamarack CEO Nick Guida, the company is “teaming up with some major organizations around the world, big organizations. We know we have to go big. Organizations that will help certify, produce, and flight test. We are going to build a coalition and have a [separate] company dedicated to just the A320 that will de-risk this thing. We have 32 people in Sandpoint [Idaho, company headquarters]. We can’t do it all ourselves.”

Guida said a test/prototype aircraft for the A320 winglet program should be flying in nine to 12 months and could be certified as early as two years from now.

The company’s other winglet programs are also advancing. En route to BACE, a King Air 350 equipped with Tamarack winglets made the 2,369-nm flight in 7 hours, 47-minutes with an average 26-knot tailwind.

Tamarack’s winglet program for the King Air 200 and 350 series already has gleaned positive responses from aircraft owners and the company expects to begin taking orders for those products shortly. “Based on interest, we know there is a robust sales universe waiting for our performance Smartwing upgrade,” said Guida. Tamarack already has installed winglets on 170 Cessna Citation CJ-series jets, including recently on a new M2 Gen 2.

This week at NBAA-BACE 2022, Tamarack and electric aircraft converter Ampaire signed a deal to equip the Ampaire Cessna 208 Eco Caravan, Twin Otter Eco Otter, and Eco King Air with Tamarack winglets. Joint development has already begun.

Tamarack said the winglets should add about 10 percent more efficiency, alleviate the impact of turbulence, improve high/hot performance, shorten runway requirements, and increase payloads. Flight testing of the Eco Caravan with the winglets should begin before year-end, with certification expected in 2024.