I tend to drop my speed to about 80% after the first 10 seconds of launch, and for some reason can never get the winglets to drop below the height of the last booster, although now that I think about it, Ive never had the lander engine before due to free version builds. Ill have to try that. Also, I have read about using the legs to detach the externals but, trying to keep things as operationally 'real' as possible, so I would rather not do that. Ive tried using SRBs for the initial launch and using this craft to get further, but for some reason they make this unstable enough to the point it is hard to fly without the SAS mods, which as you can see from the pic, is not present, unnecessary weight IMO if I am just trying to land on the Mun. Thank you though for the input, ill try out a few different variants and placement of the winglets and see what my fuel looks like once Ive achieved orbit around the Mun.