No theory: After talking with Dick Johnson at a Hobbs contest I tried a slight sideslip in thermals in my winglet-free 20B. It seemed to help so I kept doing it. It did not help in my 27, which was designed to have winglets, so I stopped doing it.
I never flew the 27 with only one winglet and compared results turning to the winglet and away from it, so no idea if it would have made any difference or not. (PS: The only guy I saw, after landing, who had lost one winglet in flight on a 27 said he hadn't noticed any impact on his flying at all.)




On Sunday, February 7, 2016 at 3:09:42 PM UTC-7, wrote:
I know this is a silly question, but I was reading an article by Dick Johnson that talked about holding a slight slip while thermally. This article was written before winglets and I was wondering if the same idea applied to gliders with winglets. Also, as for slipping to lose altitude for landing in a glider with winglets, does this place a lot of side load on the winglets. Should you not slip in landing with winglets?

Sorry for the questions, but would appreciate any help in this.