[ MSFS2020 | VATSIM ] a PMDG DC-6 long-hauler for "Class D Spree", KPDX-KBUR!

For the record, I'm aware that for the "Class D Spree" we flew from one Class Charlie airport to another. In fairness, I laid out the stream schedule before the event details were published and all we knew was that it would be hosted by Seattle, Oakland, and Los Angeles ARTCCs. Based on what was scheduled around it, I wanted to target this evening for a trip in the PMDG DC-6 -- so we rifled through "TimeTableImages.com" and found one from the United 1947 book. While we usually prefer to do a two-hop, tonight we elected for the single medium-haul flight as UAL650 from Portland (KPDX) to Burbank (KBUR)!
Even with this being a longer flight for me, it's still small potatoes for the four-engine airliner -- and even with all applicable alternate, reserve, and contingency fuel, the total load of 14,000 pounds still fit very nicely in the main tanks. However, part of the fun of the so-called "Mainliner" was managing the fuel balance with the eight total fuel tanks! For an extra challenge, we loaded the tanks asymmetrically wherein the mains all had 1,000 pounds except #3 which had 3,000, and the aux tanks all had 2,000. Our goal was to land with balanced fuel across the mains and the auxes!
I often tend to forget with the west-coast-based FNOs that they typically run 8p-midnight Eastern, rather than the more common 7p-11p -- simply to allow the west-coast controllers that additional hour to get off from school or work and get their scopes up and running. (It's not a given that every VATSIM controller lives within the area they control, but it's certainly the norm.) So when we planned to be wheels up by 45 minutes in, I'd forgotten that this would be before ATC was likely available. ZOA came on early, but the rest jumped on right at the published event time (common, because most ARTCCs hold a virtual briefing prior to opening up event coverage). By that point we had just taken off from PDX and turned out to the south to head toward Eugene.
We did get checked on with Air Traffic Control without any issue and continued our climb. However, we realized that with just 1,000 pounds of fuel in main tanks 1, 2, and 4, we were in danger of running dry before getting up to cruise. It was still too busy a phase of flight to start messing with all of the weird crossfeed lever options to figure out how to bleed down that #3 main -- so to buy ourselves some time, we simply switched over to the symmetrically-loaded aux tanks.
Once we got up to cruise, we initially found some difficulty getting the plane to track VORs -- however, at the suggestion from someone in the chat, decided to try "installing" the GPS, toggling the HSI back and forth between GPS and VOR a few times, then switching back to having only the radios -- and that seemed to work. In the meantime, we zoomed in close on the labels surrounding the fuel crossfeed levers and got a sense of what we needed to do. Lo and behold, we got the entire plane (all four engines) running off of the one overfilled main tank, and nervously watched over the course of the next hour or so while it burned down to be level with its counterparts. We then decided to switch back to the aux tanks for the rest of the evening, since we still had plenty of fuel there to sustain the remainder.
The Fernando Seven Arrival connects directly in with the ILS to Runway 8 at Bob Hope (or, should we say, Lockheed Air Terminal) -- but it requires a fairly steep descent, and it was further complicated because our initial descent instruction had us arriving at 11,000 feet ten miles later than the standard one would have. Fortunately we were pretty proactive letting our controller know we would need an earlier and more gradual descent than most others, and he was perfectly willing to zig-zag us across the localizer a few times. Even with that, though, we were well above the glideslope and still indicating over 200 knots on fairly short final. Once again, though, we were proactive about asking for help, and got it in time to make it work. Having verified we had sight of the field, the controller reassigned us from the ILS to a Visual approach, on which he was able to authorize a 360-degree turn to the right. The turn allowed us to lose the added altitude we needed to, then, to start getting more aggressive about controlling the speed.
After all that, and fighting to get the plane re-aligned with the runway after the spin, we did extend our streak of nice gentle DC-6 touchdowns by remembering to reduce the power and lift the nose MODESTLY. Both actions combined to set us down very pleasingly, and a burst of reverse-thrust from the four giant Pratt and Whitney R-2800 Double Wasps brought us to a serene taxi speed to end the evening! Given that performing a single longer-haul trip rather than our usual two-hop meant that the landing at Bob Hope was the only one of the night, we were grateful to log a pleasant one! -- Watch live at / slantalphaadventures

[@davidloader8144]

I've had the issue where the gyropilot in localiser mode sometimes doesn't track the beam, seems to be an intermittent bug - going to the tablet options and cycling between GPS and back to Bendix usually fixes that. I actually have recycling the GPS on the pre-flight checklist I use now.
EDIT - ah, looks like about 1:21:00 you did exactly that. "Infernal device" - my thoughts exactly!

[@SlantAlphaAdventures]

yeah, that worked during this trip too. I may just end up doing the same thing as you.

[@SlantAlphaAdventures]

LMAO I just saw your edit