Markoz wrote on May 8^th, 2014 at 6:08am:

The thing that I find difficult with the fuel management is that whenever I open the Left and Right Fuel Crossflow Valves, while the Left and Right FWD and AFT Boost Pumps are ON, the fuel is fed from one tank, say the No1 Tank, for a while, then it will switch to another tank (No2), then the next (No3). It will cycle through this  until I either close the Left and Right Fuel Crossflow Valves, or turn the Left and Right FWD and AFT Boost Pumps are OFF. I've never found out if that is the way it happens in real life or not, but it seems strange to me. :-/ In the early days after I got the CS 727, I spent a lot time trying to balance them better. After Lou explained what to do (as per the info I provided before), I have never had to worry about it. It becomes a simple case of the Center (No2) Tank feeding all the emgines until it is roughtly equal to the Left (no1) and Right (No3) Tanks. Then turn on all the Boost Pumps, and close the Left and Right Fuel Crossflow Valves.

I noticed that too, which led me to just turn off the pumps. I'm sure it doesn't work that way in the real airplane as the #2 system pumps should overpower the #1 and #3 pumps. For me that was an initial ground school thing as I flew the airplane as an FO so fuel balance wasn't my job, but that of the SO. I do remember them taking great pride when running tank to engine, in getting all the levels exactly equal by tweaking them with the Fuel Crossfeed Manifold valves. This wouldn't have been possible if they had to turn off pumps to crossfeed as the delay in re-setting pumps and valves wouldn't allow the exact equality they were looking for.

The CS version works just fine as you stated. The only time it's been an issue for me is on the odd occasion when needing max range, my virtual SO ;) has left the system in crossfeed mode until the center tank is much lower than the wing tanks ::)  You should be able to just turn off all the #2 pumps and feed equally from #1 and #3 but that ain't happening because of the characteristic you mentioned above about feeding from the tanks on a rotational basis. It will feed from #1 then #3 then whatever it feels like doing at the time. so it becomes from that point, a constant monitoring operation feeding from #1 with all the rest of the pumps off until its level is equal to #2, then feeding from #3 until it equals the other two.

Oh for an actual virtual SO to whom you could say, "Ain't my job...just fix it" ;D