A pressure feed fuel system means that fuel is taken from the tank and pumped under pressure to the engines. This means that the fuel tanks can be located underneath the engines, and that any engine can be fed from any tank, via pressurised crossfeeding. This is particularly useful with multi-engine aircraft which can have engine failures, to allow fuel balancing in that eventuality.

Pressure feed fuel systems are the opposite of purely gravity fed fuel systems, where the tank must be sufficiently over the engine to push the fuel through the lines to the engine.

Pressure feed systems have a few advantages over gravity fed fuel systems:

• The aircraft can be more manoeuvrable as the fuel feeding will not stop if the local gravity changes (during harsh manoeuvres).
• The fuel flow is more consistent due to higher pressure, less chance of vapour lock and also during manoeuvring the fuel flow will not cut out.
• The fuel tanks can be anywhere in the aircraft and be pumped to engines which can be anywhere, unlike gravity fed systems which have obviously very strict requirements. Fuel can also be cross-fed, etc. to balance tanks. This makes the aircraft design much more flexible.

Disadvantages of pressure feed systems include the fact that gravity fed systems are less complex and therefore reduce weight. They are also not reliant on electric or engine driven fuel pumps.