In article ,
ojunk (Bob Salvo) wrote:
Anyone?
Bob

Winglets reduce induced drag by effectively making the wingspan longer.

I've never seen anyone argue convincingly that a half a meter of
vertical wingspan does anything that couldn't be done equally well with
an extra half meter of normal wingspan. On the other hand winglets are
worse than span in that they don't produce lift in a useful direction,
and they are harder to make strong and rigid than ordinary span is.

If it wasn't for class rules limiting winspan I don't think anyone would
have winglets.

-- Bruce