Babalonian I can't speak for anyone but I personally have a hard time not taking it all from A to Z with a grain of salt when you say you can't tell that the AFT tank makes no difference for the 152's agility. It's true now and was true from day 1 in the old AH version to the AH2 physics rework.
The only thing that's changed is that way back then, in AH1, depending on whether you kept wings or FWD last, the plane would react peculiarly when you rode it real deep to the edge of stall - the wings would wag (roll) just preceding full departure. If either one (fwd/wings) was better, neither me nor AGJV44 found it from plain practical tests. And at the time we put so much time into the game that we could've won Eskimo's pasty skin award (not joking).
Yep as much as it might seem like it's easier said than done, it really is a conveniently dead simple solution to the problem. The only complication is that depending on how familiar you are with the plane's FM, you might have to spend a lot of time (relatively, in terms of how much time you can afford looking into cockpit and basically handicapping your SA) looking back and forth at that sideslip ball.
But once you get a feel for it, it becomes second nature like everything else and you won't be flying sideways -- unless you mean to
Strange, I would swear that I've said otherwise, but please do provide the quote in its full context sir. Given the subject of this thread, you should very well take any thing not backed up by hard facts or data with a grain of salt (or the whoel shaker), but I jsut think you've interpreted it mistankenly.
The 152 is quite agile, especialy at some low n slow speed manuevers with those massive wings and powerplant. It has a fantastic roll rate like all 190s at most every speed (but not the best), and the rudder's authority is enough to slap an elephant unconscious (rediculously illogical, but it makes the point).
What you have quoted out of context though sounds awefuly familiar to my earlier complaint that the Aft tanks fuel level/weight bears no difference whatsover when an adverse yaw is induced (from what I've only recently started to realise/learn) from an overagressive roll, compiled by torque and the rapidly tilting lift vector. I originaly described this behaviour as extremely confusing to me in regards to believing the aft fuel weight was a signifigant contributing factor (weather it was empty or not/properly modeled or not), but would say I am begining to come to the understanding now of why it's had no effect on it in the past.
I will add this though, the rudder is enough for getting most adverse yaw departures back in check, but one induced in the manner I've been describing it is never enough by itself, you need to chop throttle too and even then it's already likely too late (I don't know if it's because such an unstable yaw departure has already been induced beyond any means of bringing it back within check, or if you contentrate on any other aspect first (such as wings level comming out of the roll) causing any delay in attempting to bring the yaw back into check just in the nick of time).
I also stated the aft fuel weight bears no difference in being able to repeatedly recover the aircraft from the following tail-first stall in most fuel weight distribution conditions except one, and that's when all fuel tanks are empty except for the aft (and yeah, that makes recovering from the stall a real horse)... this matter especialy still makes no sence to me, but recovering from a stall is a seperate matter, one thing at a time, etc..
Anyways, I feel like an enlightened idiot today already because of this topic, so it's not like I'm avoiding feeling the fool, but I intend to do more offline looking into this now with my refreshed understanding of some things. And I welcome any constructive criticism or valuable knowledge you've all been providing and I hope keep doing.