Spitfire going the wrong direction...

[whoarmongar]

What they are doing is aligning the compass. You are not expected to do this in CoD.
In COD your compass is aligned, the needle points north.
What you are expected to do is line up your coursesetter (the tram lines) to your already aligned compass , stage 1.
then you take this reading and input it into your directional gyro ( the readout on your dashboard inconveniently hidden behind the stick) stage2.
It takes about 15seconds to do this. just make it a preflight ritual, It gives you something to do while you wait for your engines to warm up.