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Dennis,
I'm no aero engineer, but here's my
take on the uneven fuel:
Imagine two identical airplanes,
one at max gross weight, and the other with a light load and a single
pilot. The heavier one will stall at a higher airspeed,
right?
Now to state the obvious,
if you have an unbalanced fuel load, one wing is heavier than the
other. This creates more aerodynamic load (lbs/sq. ft) on the heavier
wing, (which is why you'd need ailerons to hold it up). So long as you
maintain adequate speed, you can control the plane, but the danger lies in
getting slow enough that the heavier wing will stall before the light one, which
is a perfect scenario to get yourself into a spin. The place where the
most danger lies is during takeoff and landing, where you have no altitude to
recover from a stall or departure from controlled flight.
The IV's already have relatively high
wing loading and intentionally flying one far out of balance is a
really bad idea.
Skip
Slater
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