The first three Tamarack Active Winglet installations at the company's Aiken, South Carolina transformation centre have been completed and another CitationJet modification is scheduled in a few days. The newest CitationJet Active Winglet sales include a CJ and two CJ2s. The CJ is operated by GED Jet, a private operator in Boca Raton, Florida, while one of the CJ2s is owned and operated by FBT Services in Portland, Oregon. The East Coast Transformation Center is just a few miles from Augusta, Georgia, where the Masters Golf Tournament is held annually at the Augusta National Golf Club.

“The end result looks great,” says Ted Goodspeed, the pilot of the newly modified CJ. “Our entry level CJ now feels like something special, and we really feel a difference. Climbing to FL410 in 30 minutes at maximum gross weight is routine now. We enjoy ATC delays now; when level, we speed up very quickly, and when they finally give us the climb we zoom right up. The lower drag gives us more excess power.”

Goodspeed described his experience with the Aiken Regional airport-based East Coast Transformation Center as “enthusiastic and responsive.” The centre is associated with aviation veteran Mike Laver's Carolina Turbine Support, which has brokered, serviced and ferried aircraft worldwide for decades. Laver also has a long history as a vendor for the US Air Force. Laver's operations servicing and parking business jets during the Masters is down this year due to pandemic setbacks, but that has not affected Tamarack's customer base interest in modifying their jets with Active Winglets to provide fuel savings of up to 33 per cent, support sustainability, offer smoother and safer flights and reduce noise pollution.

“We are excited to welcome four more jet owners to the Tamarack Aerospace family,” says Nick Guida, CEO of Tamarack Aerospace. “These new installations demonstrate our continued growth and the desire for safe and sustainable aviation technology.”

A seven- to 10-day transformation has been targeted by Tamarack for years. The East Coast Transformation Center at Aiken provides accessible factory installation of Active Winglets to the eastern US and South America. These services are already offered at Tamarack's West Coast Transformation Center in Sandpoint, Idaho, and the Tamarack European Transformation Centre in Oxford, UK. Tamarack also offers Active Winglet service via more than twenty ASCs across the US, South America and Europe.

Tamarack has modified over 100 Cessna CitationJets during the last five years. Owners and operators alike have expressed their satisfaction with Active Winglet technology. Unlike the passive winglet offerings on other platforms, which only offer about four per cent fuel savings, Active Winglets automatically adjust to turbulence, leveraging patented load alleviation and sustainability technology to reduce fuel usage by up to 33 per cent. In addition, the system provides smoother rides with safe landings on shorter runways, as Active Winglet modified aircraft reach altitude in under 30 minutes and land at slower speeds.