Upgrading the CitationJet | Citation CJ Plus | We Fly the Tamarack CJ

Upgrading the CitationJet by John Hall | Citation CJ Plus | We Fly the Tamarack CJ

Recently, Premier Jet Aviation was invited to view and fly the Tamarack CJ, the aircraft being used to flight test and certify Tamarack’s patented Active Winglet.  We were very impressed with both the attractive look of the aircraft and the added performance.  Tamarack is still in the early stages of the flight test program, and continuing to “tweak” the winglet configuration, so no official performance data is available at this point.  I can tell you, however, that they are routinely climbing to FL410 at MTOGW in under 30 minutes (a significant improvement over the CitationJet/CJ1), with an range benefit in the hundreds of miles.  We took off from San Antonio International Airport at 10,000 pounds (400 under MTOGW) and were still climbing at near 1500 fpm prior to level off at FL340.  We didn’t have a chance to climb to FL410 due to time constraints.  The test aircraft is an early CitationJet, serial 12, with quite a bit of external test equipment mounted to the fuselage and wings, but even with the additional drag the flight test engineer tells me that speeds are normally “book”, or a little better.  The aircraft is a little heavier in roll that the CJ/CJ1, closer to the feel of a Bravo in my opinion, but still has a typical well mannered “Citation feel”.  The “TAC” (Tamarack Active Control) portion of the winglet is unique and patented, as they deflect to unload the wing during turbulence (similar to modern fly by wire airliners) thus providing not only a smoother ride, but less bending moment and stress on the wing as well.

Published features of the Active Winglets are as follows: