Tecnam Fuel Level Sensor

A few blog post ago we talked about our  UNIVERSAL AIRCRAFT FUEL SENDER and the opportunities that this would open up for us in the aviation market.

Today we will be delivering units for several applications and customers.

Tecnam after first trying to utilize Capacitive Fuel Level Sensors for their aircraft and not being satisfied with their performance decided to try CiES. 

Our success on the Cirrus platforms - Both SR2X Series and the Jet warranted a close look at our technology and capability.

This is the first pair of Tecnam Fuel level sensors.

Magneto Resistive is an excellent technology to apply to fuel level solutions.

It is robust, non-contact, reliable and very accurate.


Let us know about your critical fuel level challenge -
  

Video of the Cirrus SR22 Retrofit

Post by CirrusPilot.

If You Trusted Your Aircraft Fuel Gauge?

How would you operate your aircraft

If you knew, at all times, how much fuel you had.

Hard to imagine, isn't it ?

Did you ever have that feeling that you might have put in the wrong fuel starting amount?

Did you really see fuel wash over the tabs?

Doubts about fuel level can creep into any flight.   

The statistics of fuel starvation, fuel exhaustion and fuel related loss of power events bear that out.  

But it is interesting to see that with a change in technology for fuel level reporting to Magneto Resistive Senders.

Some pilots are finding an opportunity to operate differently.

CirrusPilot

Commenter Dialogue:

I'm always surprised you do not fly your 22t topped off, were you taught to fly with minimum fuel? Maybe it's a West Coast thing, but my Cirrus SR22 is always sitting full and I fuel it every time it is at home.

Response:

Plane is hangared. Full tanks are heavier and the performance is affected. I carry 20g extra to a location like Vegas.

New Advertisement - Cirrus SR22 Retrofit

Aerospace Logic - Cirrus Design Retrofit

In creating a new fuel level system for Cirrus Aircraft we kept in the back of our mind  the opportunity to provide this technology to legacy Cirrus Aircraft as well as other aviation applications.

Aerospace Logic was the obvious choice - 

We chose their 200 series unit over other 2 1/4 instruments as Aerospace Logic has created a quality and sunlight readable  display with a clear and concise level indication.

More importantly, Aerospace Logic like CIES saw accurate and reliable fuel level indication as a valuable instrument in the cockpit.  Aerospace Logic was hampered in achieving it's goals for fuel level indication by fuel level senders that were previously available to the aviation market.  CIES Level senders with our new and patented technology completely changed the fuel sender game.

You will note that a digital value of fuel is displayed below each quantity gauge.  This gives an unmatched accurate calculation of quantity in each tank.

Aerospace Logic has worked with us to incorporate appropriate warnings that a quality fuel level indication system can provide.

Note:  The upper display is indicating a fuel "Imbalance Condition"
and the flashing Amber bar is indicating you have exceeded the POH recommendations for fuel level imbalance. Switch to the flashing AMBER tank.

One of the most important characteristics of the Aerospace Logic Display is the trend graph featured on the second page.  This provides graphical information of fuel level over time.  The use of the displayed trend data makes it easier to manage fuel in a single engine aircraft.

Most importantly,  Aerospace Logic was willing to work with CIES in developing a display unit that would allow a digital interface between the display and fuel level sender.

Aerospace Logic and CiES Inc. look forward to pilot response for this system.

http://www.aerospacelogic.com

History of AMR Fuel Level

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. 

How Do You Inspire Pilot Confidence

- The Answer is Simple -

You Provide Them with Information They Can Trust 

It seems uncomplicated, ... accurate, reliable and trusted information is key to instilling a conviction that everything is going well.

Imagine a Synthetic Vision System that throws a few imaginary mountains at you, just for fun.   This would not be a system that inspires confidence.    Random false information would make a routine IFR flight more stressful and  stomach clenching even if you knew without a doubt that no mountainous terrain exists at any time in the State of Illinois.

  Conflicting information no matter how outrageous or unbelievable adds to pilot workload.

Cross checking normally reliable sources and getting similar results are the hallmarks of a good pilot.  Minor anomolies in calculation or display can be noted and corrected before a situation occurs.  To make this effective, any display in the cockpit should match what the pilot believes to be true most of the time.

In aircraft fuel level systems - reliable trusted information is hard to come by.

Pilots Trust in Fuel Sight Gauges 

Ignoring the issues of having a flammable substance with clamped connections on transparent and UV susceptible tubing or a fragile glass tube in the cockpit  - pilots trust seeing fuel as the most confidence inspiring  vs. any other method of level gauging.   If I can see it,  I have fuel and I know how much.   If I can't see it,  I don't have fuel in that tank.   I trust it, universally most pilots do.   But the limitations (high wing mostly)  revolve around the visibility of fuel  - Cessna uses a ball on the 162 Skycatcher.  But really these systems are best left in the dark.

Pilots have Faith in Capacitive Fuel Gauges

Professional pilots use them, they are the system of commercial aviation.  I hear from pilots that capacitive systems have no moving parts and are exact and reliable,  these pilots have not taken a careful look at commercial systems or the problems and solutions contained in a commercial or business aircraft system.   Good capacitive systems are expensive - the have extensive compensation for the fuel characteristics,  like temperature, water, entrained air, component corrosion These are all part of the capacitive equation for fuel level.   Good commercial Capacitance level systems compensate for this,  systems that rely on the capacitive reputation and fail to compensate or address these issues leave quite a bit to be desired.

Pilots will Believe in Anisotropic Magneto Resistive 

While more difficult technology to grasp,  digital output for fuel level from a float based system truly represents a real breakthrough in fuel level sensing.  

• It is safe, reliable - no wear parts
• There are no electronics in the fluid
• It is compatible with modern cockpit displays
• The fuel flow totalizers will match fuel quantity - giving you a truly redundant system in the cockpit.
• Provides a level output under extreme conditions

Youtube Video of the Sender under Test

Made in the USA

One of the most clear moments of my youth was delivering newspapers - the Tribune in Chicago .   I remember one day carefully dropping the paper on the front porch at a home where the older couple were particular about their delivery.

They asked me to come in to their home and see men walking on the moon.

We were all proud of what we accomplished that day, a well delivered paper, lemonade, cookies and manned space flight.

My dad had gone to Grumman in Bethpage, NY a few weeks before and brought back a Lunar Module Model I was absorbed by the accomplishments around me.

I was immersed in aviation - I grew up in it, and I had aeroshell grease on my hands.   If I was good, I got to go flying.  My recollections of youth and aircraft pretty much trump anybody else I talk to.  From messing around in the DeHavilland Comet that sat idle for so long at O'Hare,  to a ride in the space behind the pilot in a Grumman Bearcat for teasers.

These formative experiences led me to pursue a life of working in and around aircraft.  This is (fuel level sensor) is the best accomplishment and neatest engineering work of my life in aviation...so far.

The fuel level sender program is a culmination of a career of aircraft experience, good fortune and a little of the space program all wrapped up into a convenient aviation system package.

I am waiting patiently (I am not capable)  for the time when what we have accomplished here at CiES will reach the light of day or more specifically the aviation press.

I am very proud of the group that created this a design.  From it's initiation by a former space program engineer, it's re-vision and re-creation by our customer and internal team, it's integration by the interface team that allowed display in a modern cockpit, and it's thorough evaluation and certification that allowed CIES to provide a better level of reliability and accuracy to aviation fuel level sending.  Something that may,  improve the safety of flight for general aviation aircraft.

We really feel at CIES that we are on the edge of delivering something new in aviation in an area that has really waited for a better technology to appear.

All of this effort to design, evaluate, test and manufacture can be stamped with a Made in America. (we had some Canadian assistance)

We are most proud that we initiated the American Dream here in Oregon.

We built a new company,  we put people to work,  we build a world class product.

The answer to a more accurate reliable Fuel Level Sender - May be right in front of you.

Service Bulletin

In a recent software update - two items were added

These selections were not part of the previous software options list.  

Let us know if you would like more information.


More Information