Why fly the Spitfire?

[klem]

Originally Posted by 609_Huetz

That's because the needle on displays a part of the fuel you actually have on board. If you take her for a spin at i.e. 50% you will notice quite a bit of movement.

Fuel is carried in two tanks, one above the other, the lower being self-sealing in later Mk Is and in all Mk IIs. They are located forward of the cockpit and fuel is delivered to the engine by an engine driven pump. Tank capacities are: upper - 48 Imperial gallons; lower - 37 Imperial gallons.
The lower tank supplies fuel to the engine and the top tank feeds into the lower tank. There should actually be two fuel cocks, one for each tank, located where the single one is in CoD.

Normally the fuel gauge didn't read anything and you would press the BOTT TANK button to read its contents but in CoD it's 'pressed' continuously. All the time the gauge reading is 'full' you know you still have fuel in the top tank with a full bottom tank. If you select say 30% fuel before takeoff you'll see the reduced reading on the gauge - about 25 gallons in the bottom tank.

There is a fuel cock missing, I guess one fuel cock does both tanks, but I can live with that (although Main and Reserve fuel cock positions are modelled in the Hurricane!).