DG-300 Water Ballast Bags

On Feb 17, 5:28*pm, "noel.wade" wrote:
So I would like to start flying my DG-300 with water; but the previous
owner tells me that the bags weren't used for about the last 10
years. *Rather than take a chance on them, I'd like to replace them.

My local DG dealer (whom I do appreciate) is saying its about $1000USD
per bag from the factory (I have the larger bags in my wings). *I
don't have that kind of free cash, and I'm not a fan of the DG
leadership at the moment anyway.

...So I see from earlier threads that other people heartily recommend
the smiley bags, and the Eastern Sailplane website quotes a pretty
darned good price for the DG-300 (I'm assuming its for the smaller
bags, but that's OK). *However, the last RAS post I can find claims
that Eastern Sailplane no longer offers them?

Can anyone confirm this? *And if Eastern is out, do folks have any
recommendations? *I see a few comments about "Clipper" in AU, but
that's a long way from the US and I'm not sure about ordering from a
waterbed company (not that I don't trust their product - just that its
probably something odd for them to handle and may be a complicated
order).

Any thoughts, comments, or recommendations?

Thanks!

--Noel

If you actually bothered to call John Murray and ask him, he would
tell you that the "Smileys" have been out of production for years. He
has a couple of oddball sets left in the attic. I know 'cause I was
sorting through the dregs last Winter. Nothing for a DG-300.

Clipper quotes reasonable prices, shipping is, of course, expensive.
I have not seen their product, but folks have made several positive
reports here and on various sailplane owner groups. They are the only
non-oem source I know of at the moment. I am likely to be drawing up
the set of bags I'd like to have for my asw-20b and sending them out
for quotes, but I am not hopeful. I've talked to some rubber sheet
goods shops and they really weren't very enthusiastic about a run of 2
parts. Also had a mad thought about making a set of bags out of
commercial rubber roofing membrane and while this stuff is durable,
cheap and easy to bond it fails to provide what I consider adequate
tear resistance.

While on the subject... If anyone out there happens to have a set of
ASW-20B bags (40 gallon capacity) they'd be interested in selling or
swapping for ASW-20A Smiley bags (25 gallons, 1 year in service),
please contact me....

-Evan Ludeman / T8