Testing Confirms Predicted Benefits

Inflight testing of a Beechcraft King Air 350 fitted with Tamarack Aerospace Group‘s Performance SMARTWING  has confirmed predicted increases in endurance and payload, high/hot take-off abilities, extended loiter time, and inflight stability.

Early comparative analysis of the flight-testing suggests a five-percent improvement in fuel economy during loiter-mission cruise; a ten-percent increase in climb-gradient; and a five-hundred-pound, “High/Hot” weight, altitude, temperature (WAT) improvement that correlates to almost two hours of added aircraft endurance.

The King Air 350 is the second turboprop airframe to be evaluated by Tamarack. Formerly, the company retrofit a King Air 200 with its Performance SMARTWING.

Worldwide, nearly 160 Cessna CitationJets have been retrofit with Tamarack’s Active Winglet technology. The modification has seen the Citation fleet realize range increases of up to 33%.

Nick Guida, CEO and Founder of Tamarack explained, “ … the robust flight-testing program for the Tamarack Performance SMARTWING King Air 350 focused on every aspect of safety and performance to ensure all modified aircraft will have been rigorously tested.”

Differing from the active winglet technology currently found on more than 160 Citation Jet aircraft, Tamarack’s Performance SMARTWING technology automatically controls wing bending during turbulence and other inflight events by effectively “turning off the winglets.” This is accomplished via load sensors and a camber surface that can respond to system inputs in fractions of a second. The Active Winglet/load-alleviation system is fully automatic, requires no pilot action, and functions independently of other aircraft systems.

Tamarack Aerospace Sales Director, Eric Cunningham states, “Tamarack is offering substantial savings for early investors in the King Air 350 Performance SMARTWING. Savvy customers see this unique technology as an ROI purchase that pays for itself after a relatively short time. This pre-certification pricing is being offered on a limited basis for interested parties looking to secure early production supplemental type certificate (STC) orders.”

Certification for the Performance SMARTWING King Air 350 STC is anticipated within the next 18 to 24 months.

FMI: https://www.tamarackaero.com