Hi Bill. At that time (12 years ago!!) I was looking for ways to tame the
take off habits of my '55. Because of my weight (max cockpit) I had to fly
with partial ballast only. Filling it would greatly exceed max all up
weight. Because of the long skinny tanks the partial water load would move
when the wing dropped on take off... something it almost always did unless I
had a very athletic wing runner. So every take off was an adventure and
very entertaining to the onlookers. Having said that I never actually lost
it on take off. But wing down, everything in the opposite corner for an
extended period was not comfortable.

I sold my '55 a few years back. I loved it in the air and it was a rocket
at max weight. It held the Australian 300k out and return for a while at
147kph. I sold it because I considered it to be not the best glider to grow
old in. The new owner (much younger than me) loves it. I now fly a
DG-400... much more in keeping with my aging abilities!!

Best regards,

Tom Gilbert



wrote in message
...

On Monday, October 13, 2003 at 1:29:23 PM UTC-8, Tom and Jane Gilbert wrote:
Any 55 owners fitted winglets to their ships? Thoughts... comments??

Tom Gilbert

I have SN 39, modified with Nelson winglets which look a lot like ASW 27
winglets, and I
suspect are more effective than the LS-8 bent up tips. Compared to my
recollections of another
'55 that I owned (SN 29) low speed roll control is improved-- which helps
with partial
ballast take offs.

On the subject of how much water to put in, Jerzy Szemplinski once told me
about the '55:

"Bill, you fill it. You always fill it!"