Balancing fuel tanks without crossfeed B757/67
Medically retired for some years now so this memory is a bit foggy
I spent eleven very happy years flying the 757 and 767 around a good part of the world
I was just remembering a technique some pilots used to balance fuel without crossfeeding, it was not in the book or an official procedure
Scenario : you are feeding both engines from the center tank and notice one wing (main) tank has a significantly greater amount of fuel than the other, perhaps approaching lateral limitations
Assuming you don’t have a leak in the lighter tank our normal procedure would be to terminate the center tank feed and feed both engines from the heavier wing tank until balanced then resume feed from the center tank to both engines until that tank is dry then going wing tank to respective engine for the rest of the flight
However some pilots used a different technique, in the same scenario with fuel in the center tank and approaching lateral limits with one wing tank heavier than the other they would just turn off the center tank fuel pump on the ‘heavy side’
So if the right main tank had far more fuel than the left turning off the center tank fuel pump on that side meant the main tank fuel pumps overrode the one running center tank pump, burning down the fuel on the right side to within limits while the center tank continued to feed the left engine
Once the main tanks were balanced you just turned the other center fuel pump back on resuming center tank feed to both engines
It’s quite possible I’m not remembering this correctly now, thoughts and opinions welcome !