Aviation Partners Boeing (APB), a joint venture between Aviation Partners Inc. (API) and the Boeing Company, has developed a Split Scimitar Winglet (SSW) program designed for Boeing Business Jets. APB claims the new winglets improve the long-range performance of BBJ series airplanes by 2.5 to 3 percent, adding about 200 nautical miles of range over the current Blended Winglets.
The SSW is expected to receive FAA certification in the next three months, Joe Clark, API’s founder and CEO, said at a press conference at the NBAA Convention in Las Vegas. The SSW will be offered as an STC retrofit for the BBJ, BBJ2 and BBJ3. The completion of the installation is expected to take approximately eight days.
In addition to adding strength of the internal structure, the Scimitar Winglet retrofit includes a replacement of the existing winglet tip caps with an aerodynamically shaped “scimitar” tip cap and the addition of a similarly shaped, but smaller, ventral strake. The SSW is also offered on the Boeing 737 airliners and several airlines have signed contracts for the retrofit. Following certification Clark expects 800 SSWs to be produced in 2014 and 1,000 in 2015.
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