Has anyone seen tips like these before? I'd love to know where they're from and what they do.

Found on the Lago Cholila Aero Fishing Lodge facebook page.

Eric,

I suspect the endplates might have come off the wingtips on the old Snow S-2 Ag plane. here's a copy of the one restored by Pima Air & Space Museum. A fair amount of ag-operators ran both 180's and 185's along side the 300-400 gallon Snows.

Easy fix for damaged wing tips.. also early method of controlling wing vortices. Snow later switched to a different wingtip design in an attempt to control the vortex finally, just extended the wings and squared the tips.

Nigel

Nigel, thanks for posting that. I looked at some other pictures of S-2s and those wingtips and found that the endplates are shaped differently than those on the 180, but I suspect you're on to something. It is a South American plane, and I suspect it's easier to do some unique mods and repairs than it is here in the U.S.

I've heard them called "splates". They work very much like winglets. I am also seem to remember that such wingtips are in the J-3 cub TCDS and a bunch of working Cubs ended up with them installed.