Charles Beck, a Navy Veteran, Lawyer, NASA Alumni and Engineer has looked closely at the issue of fuel level reporting and annunciation in aircraft.
Charles had designed and produced, through his company International Avionics, master caution and annunciation panels and other electrical systems for great number of popular general aviation aircraft.
Charles had a particular interest in the number of aviation accidents regarding fuel in aviation or the lack thereof. His insight and skills as a pilot and engineer allowed him to look at the problem to see if he could apply his considerable technological skills and spacecraft experiance to mitigating the hazard.
Charles initiated this work at an accurate low fuel warning system - known to most as the annunciation system on the Mooney M20 series aircraft. This system has been copied and emulated in software by a majority of the GA industry. It was not an FAA requirement at that time to have a separate annunciated low fuel warning - It was just a good idea.
Charles ran into a problem however in that the information from the fuel level senders available to the GA fleet did not lend themselves to accurate and reliable output.
At first Charles addressed this with signal conditioning and looked at methods for getting the sensor out of the fuel. Patents followed these efforts and Charles turned his attention to Hall Effect sensors as a possible opportunity to remotely and accurately measure fuel level. His experiments with Hall effect did not produce a reliable aviation sensor. Temperature, magnetic fields and drift over time rendered these Hall Effect efforts to be unsuitable to the aviation application.
About this time an old technology, in a new and compact form became commercially available - We may remember the Suunto wristwatch compass as the first consumer application of Anisotropic Magneto Resistive (AMR) technology - an electrical sensor discovered by Lord Kelvin to measure the direction of a magnetic flux.
Combining the remote moving magnet connected to mechanical float or other means and measuring the position of that magnetic field remotely and accurately with AMR technology lead to Charles fuel level patent.
AMR technology allowed an angular measurement potential down to 0.02 degrees -and provided a remote, safe and accurate fuel measurement immune from temperature, other magnetic fields, drift or wear.
Charles Beck's relationship with Mooney Aircraft allowed him opportunity to test this system and improve it's output and interface. As Mooney Aircraft struggled to find firm footing, first with economic and then competitive issues this system and its advantages was literally left waiting in the wings.
I was encouraged by two Mooney Alumni to take a close look at the system and it's advantages. Issues with fuel level systems were on the top ten customer complaints for every major air and rotorcraft OEM - there was a clear opportunity for something new, and CIES has captured that opportunity.
Charles had designed and produced, through his company International Avionics, master caution and annunciation panels and other electrical systems for great number of popular general aviation aircraft.
Charles had a particular interest in the number of aviation accidents regarding fuel in aviation or the lack thereof. His insight and skills as a pilot and engineer allowed him to look at the problem to see if he could apply his considerable technological skills and spacecraft experiance to mitigating the hazard.
Charles initiated this work at an accurate low fuel warning system - known to most as the annunciation system on the Mooney M20 series aircraft. This system has been copied and emulated in software by a majority of the GA industry. It was not an FAA requirement at that time to have a separate annunciated low fuel warning - It was just a good idea.
Charles ran into a problem however in that the information from the fuel level senders available to the GA fleet did not lend themselves to accurate and reliable output.
At first Charles addressed this with signal conditioning and looked at methods for getting the sensor out of the fuel. Patents followed these efforts and Charles turned his attention to Hall Effect sensors as a possible opportunity to remotely and accurately measure fuel level. His experiments with Hall effect did not produce a reliable aviation sensor. Temperature, magnetic fields and drift over time rendered these Hall Effect efforts to be unsuitable to the aviation application.About this time an old technology, in a new and compact form became commercially available - We may remember the Suunto wristwatch compass as the first consumer application of Anisotropic Magneto Resistive (AMR) technology - an electrical sensor discovered by Lord Kelvin to measure the direction of a magnetic flux.
Combining the remote moving magnet connected to mechanical float or other means and measuring the position of that magnetic field remotely and accurately with AMR technology lead to Charles fuel level patent.
AMR technology allowed an angular measurement potential down to 0.02 degrees -and provided a remote, safe and accurate fuel measurement immune from temperature, other magnetic fields, drift or wear.
Charles Beck's relationship with Mooney Aircraft allowed him opportunity to test this system and improve it's output and interface. As Mooney Aircraft struggled to find firm footing, first with economic and then competitive issues this system and its advantages was literally left waiting in the wings.
I was encouraged by two Mooney Alumni to take a close look at the system and it's advantages. Issues with fuel level systems were on the top ten customer complaints for every major air and rotorcraft OEM - there was a clear opportunity for something new, and CIES has captured that opportunity.
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