Tamarack opens East Coast install center

“Tamarack continues to grow, with concrete plans for long-term expansion involving many different kinds of airframes—from business jets, to commercial single-aisle aircraft, to military planes. The new East Coast Transformation Center’s location and capabilities fit perfectly with our expansion plans,” said Nick Guida, Tamarack’s founder and CEO. “This supports the demand for our product and the demand that we’re seeing. We have a game-changing technology that we’re ready to take out to the larger market.”

Compared to passive winglets, which offer fuel savings of about 4 percent, Tamarack said its ATLAS Active Winglets can reduce fuel usage as much as 33 percent—while allowing better rates of climb and slower landing speeds. When you can enable a 20-year-old airplane to go four hours on a tank of fuel, instead of three hours, “it’s such a steep change in performance that it’s almost too good to be true,” Guida said. “And that’s a challenge of having this amazing technology.” The winglets are available only for certain Cessna Citation models, but that’s poised to change.

“We are expanding our product line beyond the CJ,” said Tamarack President Jacob Klinginsmith. “We’re seeing plenty of demand for the winglets, even through the pandemic.” Tamarack started the year with 20 employees and will close it out with more than 30, he added. “We’ve hired quite a few engineers.”

The South Carolina installation center, located at Aiken Regional Airport, is affiliated with aviation veteran Mike Laver’s Carolina Turbine Support. Laver’s company has brokered, serviced, and ferried aircraft worldwide for decades, and Laver has a long history as a vendor for the U.S. Air Force.

“We are excited to be at the right time and the right place to partner with Tamarack during this very exciting time, when aviation is focused on sustainability and safety,” Laver said. “Tamarack’s active winglets provide dramatic abilities to satisfy both needs at this crucial time when aviation is beginning its rebound from the horrible pandemic.”

Laver and Carolina Turbine Support have been closely associated with the Mitsubishi MU–­2 for 35 years, and will continue to support the fast twin turboprop. “A natural transition for an MU-2 pilot is into a CJ,” said Laver, who recently purchased a Citation jet.

Tamarack’s new East Coast center will serve customers in the eastern United States and South America. It’s the company’s third installation center; its West Coast center is located at the recently expanded corporate headquarters in Sandpoint, Idaho, and the Tamarack European Transformation Centre opened earlier this year in Oxford, England. Future expansion will be dictated by customer demand.

Tamarack has modified more than 100 Cessna Citation jets over its 10-year history. “We’ll be making some announcements next year about the next models,” Klinginsmith said.