DC8 Fuel System

The way JF modelled the fuel system and start procedures in no way bears any resemblance to how this thing was operated in real life.

I really wish that I could attach files here, it would make this easier to explain.  The fuel system on this airplane was actually much easier to manage than what it looks.  First, all engines fed from their respective main tank, unless there was a problem.  Crossfeed levers were normally in the up position (normal) unless there was a problem.  You never really had a fuel imbalance issue unless you flew for a prolonged period with an engine out.  The only time that I really had to crossfeed fuel was 7 hours into a 12 hour flight and we had to shut down #3.  All starts, takeoffs and landings were down feeding from your respective main tank.  No crossfeeding allowed.  The fuel selectors (the ones with the white knobs) were only used when there was an issue with it's corresponding main tank.  Such as a fill valve being failed in the closed position.  Or the boost pump in the aux tank failed.  The engine driven fuel pump would suck fuel out of a tank.  On check rides the check engineer would usually have you demonstrate that you knew how to suction feed from the #1 alternate tank to the #4 motor.  So after take off, assuming you had a full bag of gas, you would place the center fuel selector lever down, turn on the center tank pumps, open the main tank fill
valves and fuel would transfer from the center to the mains.  When the center main quantity dropped to 23000 lbs, you would move the fwd aux selector to down and the two fwd wing aux tanks would gravity feed into the center.  With the center and fwd aux tanks empty, you would shut off the center boost pumps, close the fuel selector levers, turn on the aux tank boost pumps, rotate the main tank fill valves to their intermediate position and now the aux tanks will keep the mains filled.  There were some float switches to maintain a certain amount of fuel in the aux tanks as there was a certain schedule to it.  But I'm not going to go into that much detail.  As you can see, there's not really that much to it.  I would really love to get a hold of whatever manual JF used to see how they came up with this procedure for engine start.