Bringing Part 25 Fuel Measurement to General Aviation

CiES Inc. is a Bend, Oregon-based designer and manufacturer of modular embedded aircraft systems and sensors. The company’s fuel-level senders have largely transformed—and bettered—fuel-management in general aviation aircraft.

Differing dramatically from marginally-reliable float and legacy capacitance fuel-sensor systems, CiES’s intelligent fuel-level sensors are precise, dependable, and safe. Comprising advanced sensor technologies, unique interfaces, and embedded software, CiES products provide pilots and aircraft operators accurate and reliable data upon which important decisions may be better and more confidently made.

On 10 August 2023, CiES’s next-generation fuel-sender—which features dynamic damping, pitch-compensation, and expanded digital communication capabilities—was granted FAA TSO-C55a Approval.

Magnetic Field Sensor technology is patented by CiES and salient to the function of the company’s fuel-level senders. The function of subject sensors is predicated upon the premise that the electrical properties of certain ferromagnetic alloys, such as permalloy, are influenced by external magnetic fields. The described phenomenon—by dint of the careful situation of magnets—can be harnessed to measure angles.

The effect approximates a compass, with the float on the surface of a volume of fuel functioning as north. After the fashion of a compass needle pointing northward in perpetuity, a CiES’s fuel-senders points, always, to the floats sitting atop the surfaces of host aircrafts’ fuel-tanks. Regardless the manner in which or the direction or degree to which the fuel-volume is displaced, CiES’s fuel-senders point unerringly to the float.

CiES’s proprietary digital fuel-quantity system utilizes high-tech sensors that facilitate accurate and repeatable measurement of aircraft fuel-quantity down to changes in fuel-level of less than 0.03-of-an-inch. The antecedent value represents considerably less than one-tenth of a U.S. gallon.

CiES’s STC’d fuel-senders are authorized to replace the OEM fuel-quantity senders in: Britten Norman’s BN2; Beechcraft’s 33, 35, 36, 55, 58, and T34; Cessna’s 150, 170, 172, 177, 177RG, 180, 182, 185, 190, 195, 206, 207, 210, 300, 400, and TTx; Cirrus’s SR20 and SR22; Fairchild’s 24; Gippsland/Mahindra’s GA8; Piper’s PA-23, PA-24, PA-28, PA-30, PA-31, PA-32, PA-39, PA-44, and PA-46; Saab’s Safari MFI-17, MFI-15, MFI-9 Garmin & Dynon interface (Part # CC2840223325-501); Vulcanair’s P-68; and assorted Grumman, Maule, Mooney, and Socata aircraft models.

FMI: www.ciescorp.net