Sandpoint, Idaho-based Tamarack Aerospace Group is expanding its capacity to handle increasing demand for winglet installations with the addition of a so-called “transformation center” in Aiken, South Carolina.

Based at Aiken Regional Airport in conjunction with Carolina Turbine Support, the center will be capable of performing active winglet installations in 10 days or less. An East Coast regional sales manager and a team of installation specialists are based at the center, which will serve as an option for customers in the eastern U.S. and South America.

“We are planning to be able to install three active winglet kits per month at all locations,” said Tamarack COO Danny Hiner.

The new center, announced Wednesday during NBAA's VBACE, is the third installation facility for the company's Atlas active winglets. It joins a center at London-Oxford Airport in the UK that was announced in the third quarter and Tamarack's Sandpoint, Idaho, headquarters, which recently tripled its office space and acquired a third hangar.

Tamarack has modified more than 100 CitationJets over the last five years and, said founder and CEO Nick Guida, the company "continues to grow…The new East Coast transformation center’s location and capabilities fit perfectly with our expansion plans." He noted that Tamarack did 50 installations at Sandpoint in 2018. “That was a big seller for our customers. We want to duplicate that."

“Installation of active winglets is much less intrusive than [installation of] a traditional winglet, which reduces the overall effort required to install them,” added Tamarack president Jacob Klinginsmith. “Our installations take less than two weeks, with as low as one week of downtime.”

But rather than “pick up our pace in Idaho,” Tamarack is eying new locations to provide further options for customers, Klinginsmith said, noting that the company will continue to look at potential regions for installation centers based on demand.

Tamarack has continued to see demand through the pandemic, he said. People are opting to fly using general aviation and in particular charter during this time, Klinginsmith said, and “that has helped our business.”