Originally posted by Wilbus
Emtpying wing tanks first does seam to make them less prone to ripping off. Wether this is right or wrong I am not sure of, it seams right IMO as more weight further away from a solid stable source will give a bigger momentum.
Your conclusion is correct, emptying the wing tanks will make the wings less prone to damage under the same g loading. That is exactly what you would expect in a real aircraft.
When part of an aircraft structure fails, it does so because one or more of its elements have been over stressed due to excessive force. However, the g that we normally refer to is simply a force multiplier. If the TA 152 contained 50lbs in a wing tank, then at 9g that would be an extra 450lbs that would then produce extra bending moments at the wing root, and thus extra bending stress. An aircraft without that additional weight in the wing, would therefore suffer that much less stress and so would not fail under the same g load.
That is why aircraft in the real world have different g restrictions depending on their internal/external stores/weapons configuration. So for example an aircraft with weapons or fuel in or hanging off its wings would be able to pull less g than one in a clean configuration.
Since that is what folk have reported... More Kudos to the Aces High flight/damage model.
Hope that helps.
Badboy