If not this, then under Chapter 7 where will the IP end up (speculative question)?

For anyone to remove the winglets, it'll be faster and less expensive to do that if you have the engineering drawings on hand- rather than figuring it out as you go along.

My guess is the Chap 11 filing was to prevent customer claims from loss of use, AD compliance, or wingtip replacement from becoming financial liabilities. It puts any disputes directly into the hands of a court where it would have likely ended up anyway.

I believe that’s the strategy of Tamarack, which whilst not good I can’t think of a better way to gain some protection for the time being.

Andrew

I’ve been thinking about this too. Bear in mind we have a very good organisation in CJP to manage this. As you’ve seen the advocacy of the management team is impressive.

Looking at some rough numbers, there are 91 aircraft with estimated average value of say $2M each, so we have a asset pool of affected aircraft of $182 Million.

Both of the above make it doable. I’m not suggesting in anyway that it would be a walk on the park.

Andrew

I'd be surprised if Tamarack's purchase contract doesn't exclude such damages right from the get go.

If not, hugely incompetent lawyers on their side.

Thus, I don't think bankruptcy is due to customer claims, at least not claims with validity.

Mike C.

I'd be surprised if Tamarack's purchase contract doesn't exclude such damages right from the get go.

If not, hugely incompetent lawyers on their side.

Thus, I don't think bankruptcy is due to customer claims, at least not claims with validity.

Mike C.

If it becomes ch 7 liquidation, the IP becomes an asset that will be sold and proceeds distributed to the creditors.

In the ideal case, a single entity comes along and bids for all it as a package.

In the less ideal case, each piece is sold off individually, often at auction.

The most logical bidder would be Textron, but I get the feeling they won't touch this given the way they dropped the relationship with Tamarack earlier.

I bet less than $1M buys all the IP and technical goodies. A smart buyer wouldn't do that unless they can hire a few key people to go with it. This is why an owner's group could form and get the IP secured for perhaps not much money.

Mike C.

The lengths people go to to keep believing in Tamarack astounds me.

They were somewhere between hugely deceptive and outright lying in their marketing materials, and yet well defended by believers here and elsewhere.

And even now in bankruptcy, it is viewed by some as beneficial.

The most likely outcome here is that Tamarack turns to dust and blows away in the wind, and the modified airplanes have to get their wings put back to stock configuration to get flying again.

Even if the AD gets lifted, with no company to support the winglets and provide parts and support, the winglets will become a problem. We all know this AD is probably not the last deficiency to be found in such a complex system, so there is no company to issue upgrades, SBs, etc, to address those problems in the future.

The number one reason people buy a Citation is that it is supported like no other business jet in the world. Having an unsupported complex active winglet ruins that plan.

Mike C

If it becomes ch 7 liquidation, the IP becomes an asset that will be sold and proceeds distributed to the creditors.

In the ideal case, a single entity comes along and bids for all it as a package.

No one knows.

Textron could buy it on the principle of collecting patents (or keeping them away from others), with the idea they may want to try active winglets on a OEM development program. I seriously doubt they would again open up the mod shop on CJs, but perhaps the falling out with Tamarack was business and not technical, and now they could own that business outright.


I doubt it. The IP either gets sold to a big name like Textron or it gets sold for pennies to random impoverished dreamers who can't hope to bring it back to life.


I don't doubt the owners can put together the money, what I doubt is that they can turn this into a viable outcome after they bought it. The purchase price is only the first dollar of many to follow.

Mike C.

I’m in no way saying it is of any benefit to an owner, it’s not.

I am purely saying if I owned Tamarack, given the circumstances it’s probably about all they could do for breathing space.

In relation to the comments that the purchase contract would protect them, it may sound good in theory but anyone with real world commercial experience knows it doesn’t. The commercial litigators love this stuff.

I didn’t transact with Tamarack, I had mine installed through an authorised agent.

Many had theirs installed by Textron, and some new off the factory line.

Some had them installed by Tamarack direct and through the install network as below.

https://tamarackaero.com/Tamarack-Autho ... er-Network

My point is many of the customers didn’t transact with Tamarack.

Andrew

Hey this is starting to get the same tone of the SF50 thread

Time will tell but till then I’ve got my fingers and toes crossed. Also fortunate I’ve got access to a couple of mates M2 and CJ2 to keep me going so I’m not grounded

Andrew

Rather a lot of Schadenfreude emerging here. Mike, this is a serious matter for owners and to mix metaphors, I doubt any of us are viewing it through rose-tinted glasses but nor is the sky falling in as you suggest.

No schadenfreude from me (and I hope I'm not coming across that way).

I once bought a kit plane many years ago, paid in full from a company that went under soon after that and failed to deliver on a lot of the parts that I'd paid for. The company liquidated, customers like me were in the lowest tier under Chapter 7, and a third party later bought the IP for pennies on the dollar.

That is all different from a major modification to a multimillion dollar bizjet, but it was a significant chunk of my savings and assets at that time in my life, enough to make the sting memorable. I sympathize with anyone who has an orphaned airplane, big or small, rich or poor.

Aviation companies come and go, it doesn't always work out, and the business world can be tough.

Tamarack likely has a big hangar and equipment under lease. Filing BK gives them some relief from those payments and preserves whatever cash they have. I think this was the main reason for the filing. Filing 11 vs 7 leads me to think they have hope and hope is good. If you take away all hope, it is harder to believe that Tamarack will still want to fix this.

The owners would be well served to form a group ASAP, raise some money and have a voice in court. They could negotiate to keep Tamarack alive, direct some of their resources and get access to a lot more information than they have right now. The owners could loan Tamarack $250-500K (I wouldn't think this would be hard to raise) and secure it with the IP and all technical documentation. Even in the worst case, this gives the owners the a single voice, access to data and is likely the quickest path to flying again.

I don't know how many owners are CJP members (Andrew is the only one I know but I'm sure there are more) but I'd try to talk CJP into getting behind this effort on behalf of its owners.