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 ;)