Page 10 - Mar17ABS

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Source: Tamarack Aero
Tamarack founder Nick Guida knew there had to be a better way to take advantage of the inherent benefits of winglets but without the weight and structural complexity. Guida was the kid who loved airplanes and had a natural curiosity about design and aerodynamics. As a youngster, he built his own wind tunnel to do aerodynamic testing. After getting his degree from Georgia Institute of Technology in aerospace engineering, he went to work for Boeing. After eight years, he left Boeing and accepted the chief engineering job at Aviat Aircraft, the small Wyoming company that manufactures the Husky tailwheel aircraft.
While at Aviat, Guida built an experimental plane, competed in aerobatics, and attained his Designated Engineering Representative certification for structures, loads, and fatigue. That led to a job doing contract engineering for Boundary Layer Research, which was developing aftermarket winglets for the King Air. He also worked on winglets for Hawkers and Falcons.
Source: Tamarack Aero
“All this time, I’m realizing how bad winglets are for the aircraft structurally,” he said. “All this metal we are throwing at it, all these straps and reinforcements on ailerons. It seemed silly. That’s when I had an epiphany: what if we could turn ‘off’ the winglet during higher g-force events, but still reap the aerodynamic efficiency benefits during normal 1-g phases of flight?”
That big idea was the Tamarack Active Winglet system. After proving his concept out and doing some initial testing on his own aircraft, he applied for a patent, and decided the best airframe to benefit from his new idea was the Citation 525.
“First, it’s a great aircraft, and second, there are about 1,800 of them flying. Finally, the wing is the same for the 525, 525A and 525B making certification simpler,” Guida said. “There are a lot of owner-pilots who fly the 525, and they are passionate about them. We are taking an aircraft they love and making it better.”
Tamarack successfully certified its system with the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in late 2015, and received FAA STC validation for the Cessna 525, which includes the CJ, CJ1, CJ1+ and M2, last year. The company has partnered with Textron Aviation to offer the winglet system exclusively through its network of service centers. The install price is $239,900.
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