Less then 10 hours ago i landed my 707-300 freighter in KLAX. Did KDFW - KLAX in vatsim. My 21st online flight, so now i old enough to bring beer onboard  ;D

Fun started halfway to LAX. my engine 3 tank developed a major fuel leak, so i lost all fuel from tank 3. There is no way to stop fuel leaking out of tank as i understand?

Cross-feed manifold were undamaged, so i started to feed eng 3 from remaining fuel tanks, keeping the balance. I recalculated fuel usage and found that i can still make to LAX with about 8000-7000 lbs fuel remaining, so i landed with 6 000 lbs distributed in tanks number 1,2,4.
I delayed gear and flaps extension to save fuel.

That was fun in sim, and totally unfun in real life :) I got some thrill, and after i washed my pants, i got some questions:

What's the proper way to handle this situation (other than landing, coz you can be over water)

I flew on all 4 engines at FL360. I thought that way i can fly normal speed and altitude, so less time and high = less fuel burn.

Maybe it is better to shutdown one engine to save fuel? But that way you got to fly slower, so more fuel burn for time, and lower, so even more fuel burn!

What tactic gives more range?

Also i decided to even fuel quantity in tanks 1 2 4, so on landing eng 1,4 worked on tanks 1,4. And eng 2,3 used tank 2. All tanks had 2000 lbs on landing. with this low fuel it looked safer than try to keep balanced wings by feeding eng3 from other side wings tanks.

Pilots, any thoughts about this? It could happen to you too (btw i know that song ;D )

P.S. Runway....isnt she beautifull ;)

I guess it depends on where the leak is...

If the leak is in the manifold or even in the strut you could run the plane out of fuel.

If the leak is at the engine  :-[  you need to shut the time bomb down and pull the fire pull to close the strut valve.

Is this a fuel leak manufactured by FSX in the fault panel?

Sure if you are over the ocean your choices are limited - you do the best you can with the hand your delt,
but since you had lots of airports under you feet - and if something happened...
you would have a hard time defending the decision to continue at the hearing.  :o

Just my opinion, your mileage may vary.

Lou

I guess I would revert to my standard emergency procedure which mainly consists of running around screaming OMG, OMG, is there a pilot on board?  :o Must admit, it's even more likely to happen that all engines flame out and I start to wonder on why the plane is so amazingly silent on this special flight and, later, noting that the water does look closer as usual.  :-? I mean, you should stay calm in emergencies, right?

http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/4284/cobracalm.jpg

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That's the spirit, Lou! Now lets discuss emergencies happening right at tea time.  :P

Yep, that one happened right at tea time ;D
Thats why i saw empty fuel tank so late - i was at galley cooking tea, and some fast snakes. pretty boring cargo flight, more than 150 nm to current VOR, no TV, no pretty Flight Attendant aboard, so i though - i'll cook some food. My F\O had his sunglasses on, so he was useless. And F\E - mmmm, i guess we forgot him in Dallas  :-?

Actually i used FSPS X, and gave me this surprise. I didnt land right away because i was still too heavy for land, and i aimed to airports, closer to KLAX. I didnt declared emergency before landing because things got clear after descend. Circling near airport much safer, but FSPS X will kill pilots statistics, and airline statistics, so i didnt tell anybody about incident  ;) So it looks like now i understand that pressure: money on one side, safety on the other.

Damage was to fuel tank 3, not the manifold or engine. it was clear from fuel usage after tank 3 were emptied.

So the question remains: Which tactic gives more range?

P.S. FS Passengers X can simulate various situations and failures randomly.  They rare, and depends on craft age and maintenance. My 707-300C pretty old, but it was maintained - ok :)

Thats another dimension for CS to explore i think. It'll be super-cool if they add random failure and maintenance engine to they planes. I'll buy it as separate add-on as well. It's a little boring to fly knowing that nothing will ever fail, or knowing what engine can probably fail soon. DEfault FSX random failure engine allow only 6 hours of time to be programed. using it in random mode, chance of failure too high :(

So the question remains: Which tactic gives more range?

There are a few charts that could help you extend your range. LRC & MRC.

If you are en route and ATC tells you that you will have a one hour hold at your destination you could help yourself by absorbing some of the delay en route. Using Long Range Cruise (LRC) will give you a lower fuel burn and a slower speed. Max Range Cruise (MRC) will give you similar results while MRC will extend your range just a bit more than LRC. The difference could be Mach .86 to Mach .77 for LRC and maybe Mach .73 for MRC. A lot will depend on your weight and altitude. This is something we would try to do whenever we were informed of delays down the road.

Lou  

Ok! i got it. i have some fuel charts, i'll gonna check if CS 707 fuel burn close to em or not. By now im getting 3300 lbs\hr per engine at FL360 at M=0.82 is that close to real values? dont have full charts now, but maybe i'll get it someday :D

Did you flew 707 at M=0.86? its pretty close to Vne at high altitude  :o

Btw, where did you get high altitude winds over the ocean data in 70s?
I read that high alt winds pretty steady, so you can get away with several ships\island stations to make winds map for fuel planning.

Windy, I don't have the charts any more, but that sounds pretty close. We flew at Mach .82 or less unless we were late then if we had the fuel we could push it to .85 or even .86 if it was smooth.

We got our winds from dispatch before takeoff during the briefing. If something really big changed the dispatcher could call us on HF via ARINC using SELCAL which was a special code each plane had so either dispatch or ATC could get our attention. The code was a 4 letter group that was unique to each plane. Example: AG-CD would be put into a sender and the tones would ring an alert in the cockpit much like a phone call.

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This way you didn't have to listen to the HF for the whole trip.  :)

The PNF did the nav work. The DNS was the primary nav with LORAN, CONSOLAN & Ocean Station Ships & contrails as a check.

None of that girly glass stuff back then, just real pilots! 8-)

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Lou

More than you ever wanted to know about SELCAL http://www.selcalweb.co.uk/faq.html

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