Cessna Taps Tamarack for CJ Winglets

Tamarack Aerospace and Cessna Aircraft signed an agreement this week at NBAA 2013 under which Cessna will market, sell and install Tamarack’s active winglets for the CitationJet family through the CJ3. The winglets provide more range, increased useful loads and improved high-and-hot performance, while simultaneously improving fuel economy.

At the same time as providing all the advantages of traditional winglets, the active-technology load-alleviation system (Atlas) winglets use an active control surface (“Tacs”) actuator mounted near each winglet. The Tacs actuator drives small moveable surfaces mounted outboard on the wing trailing edge, near the winglets, and these surfaces move to counteract and alleviate the load on the wing.

Nick Guida, Tamarack’s president and founder, first tested the Atlas concept on his single-engine piston Van’s RV-6 homebuilt, and later on a Cirrus SR22. Tamarack is now testing Atlas winglets on a Citation CJ1, which has accumulated some 90 flight test hours.

Now, thanks to the agreement with Cessna, Tamarack will focus on obtaining a supplemental type certificate for the winglets. Guida expects the first winglets will be installed on customer CJs stating in early 2015.