Bad fuel gauges?

I wonder if a pressure sensor placed inside the bottom of the tank could be
made sensitive enough to "weigh" a column of fuel inside the tank above the
sensor. That would only work for regular sized tanks (no triangles) but
could be integrated over a long enough time to take care of any slosh.

Just a random thought, mindya...and I haven't run the numbers.

Another thought is a string of LEDs separated from photosensors with, say,
10 or 15 of them inside the tank mounted vertically.

Hmmm...any other thoughts for liquid level measurements? Sonar a la
Polaroid?

Jim




An accurate fuel gauge is long overdue in aviation. It doesn't have to
be fancy gadgetry, fuel flow integrators or capacitive sensors. One of
the experimental guys had installed a simple pressure sensor under the
fuel tank which measured the total weight of the fuel tank. While not
perfect, it was far better than anything else I have seen, including
sight gauges.