Wasn't that the problem with Bader's Big Wing during the BoB?
Pretty much, a wee snippet from my well-thumbed copy of Bungay's The Most Dangerous Enemy:
"Assuming it climbed at its optimal speed [I'm assuming he means Best Rate Climb here], a Spitfire would take about 23 minutes to cover the 70 miles from Duxford to Canterbury. It could take off about five minutes after the first radar warning of a build-up over Calais. A bomber travelling at 180 mph would reach Canterbury in 14 minutes. Even without adding in time for forming up, and assuming the Wing used Spitfires rather than the slower Hurricanes, which would take longer, a German bomber formation would be over Canterbury in half the time it would take a single fighter from Duxford to get there. The whole thing was absurd."
PO Tom Neil of 249 Sqn had this to say about the Big Wings, "All too frequently, when returning to North Weald in a semi-exhausted condition, all we saw of 12 Group's contribution to the engagement, was a vast formation of Hurricanes in neat vics of three, steaming comfortably over our heads in pursuit of an enemy who had long since disappeared in the direction of France. Our reactions on such occasions, though mostly of resigned amusement at first, grew to be more harshly critical later on."
There were pilots who were critical of the practice who took part in it, Flt Lt Douglas Blackwood of 310 Sqn stated that it was often chaos at the back of the formation with people being left behind, but Bader up front never saw that side of it. Another pilot, 19 Sqn's Frank Brinsden recalled that the Big Wings were a disaster that achieved nothing because they broke up during combat at any rate.
And in my truck, cruise control is near-useless in traffic because I must consistently adjust throttle to "fly" with traffic. It's great on open highway when everyone is doing the same speed. It follows that I get better mileage driving an empty road than stop-and-go through a freeway jam.
Same in my V8 Commodore, smooth fuel consumption on the open road when I reach the engine's sweet spot, but in traffic around town it's a whore of a thing.