I am not sure about limiting fuel but I have seen maps that have a starting amount of planes and pilots.When either of those were all gone that side lost.

This instilled a desire to survive and return to base instead of Kamakaze type flying and bailing out.

Good point,

My combat skills are fairly weak so most of my sense of accomplishment in these CFS's comes from getting that badly damaged plane accross the threshold and putting her down on a friendly airfield!

Of course real life pilots did not fly on full throttle all the time. It would have been impossible to maintain formation, engines would become unnecessarily hot, engine overhaul time might have been compromised and fuel would be consumed too quickly.

I assume your are using CEM or the question is pointless.
If you are using CEM fuel will be used more quickly so again the question is pointless.

And there is more to avoiding someone on your six than using full throttle.

The term 'locking on' suggests you are flying arcade settings using devices like 'Lock On To Target' so again the question is pointless. You can play with whatever you like in arcade settings and create whatever illusion of air combat you wish.

In principal the limiting the fuel is very right and according to the historical limits. For example Messerschmitt 109 E's were able only to dogfight over Britain maximum of 15 minutes because risk running out of fuel.

Due the state of this game right now, I don't endorse any restirctions and hinderance of gameplay right now. Maybe sometimes upcoming years we will have this Battle of Britain simulator and there are time and place to enforce each plane limitations in terms of range.

And if we are talking about historical maps at full scale like this is already, naturally the fuel will run out very soon on german side on Battle of Britain scenario.

You'd have a single leader responsible for getting his flight up off the ground. Many planes. Circling and forming up. That took a lot longer than your average Joe who wants to just get some trigger time before dinner is served in 10 minutes.

They'd have to climb ans climb and wait for the bombers they escorted.

They used all the fuel they had to in order to perform the job.

The result was they could only spend a few minutes over London because of all that plus their equipment limitations.

It wasn't just stick a new slice of gum in your mouth and fire up the PC. It was a lot of work especially for flight leaders who often insisted on being the first up and last to land.

We gamers do not appreciate nor comprehend the enormity of the task that we use to play this game.

I assume you must all be LW flyers as anyone flying a Spit Or Hurri or Blenheim would break their engines if they ran at full throttle for any length of time with CEM. I will admit I will adjust my prop pitch for max speed at a safe level of boost when expecting combat as Energy is so important in a fight.