Modern avionics upgrades can transform an aircraft.
New displays provide better situational awareness, improved engine monitoring, integrated navigation and an entirely different level of information management than the instrumentation they replace. Owners routinely invest significant amounts of time and money modernizing the panel, wiring and electrical architecture of an aircraft.
Yet one of the most important measurements in the airplane is sometimes left connected to technology designed decades ago: Fuel quantity.
Garmin’s latest installation documentation for the Axis system provides a useful indication of where aircraft fuel measurement is headed. The manual specifically identifies CiES CC284022-series fuel level sensors as an available fuel quantity interface, including both 0–5 volt analog and digital outputs.
Garmin Axis installation documentation specifically identifies CiES CC284022-series fuel level sensors for main and auxiliary fuel quantity applications, supporting both 0–5 V analog and digital interfaces.
For aircraft owners and avionics shops planning a major panel upgrade, that is significant.
Modern Avionics Deserve Modern Fuel Quantity Data
Fuel quantity is fundamentally different from many of the other parameters displayed on an avionics system.
Oil pressure, manifold pressure, electrical load and temperature measurements are important, but fuel quantity answers one of the most fundamental operational questions in flight:
How much usable fuel is actually aboard the aircraft?
The quality of the indication ultimately depends on the information being supplied to the display.
Installing a sophisticated new avionics suite while retaining an aging resistive fuel quantity system means the new display can still be receiving information from technology whose basic measurement architecture has changed very little in decades. Compounding that problem is the additional installation time required to calibrate the system, drain the tanks, recalibrate, and then discover that the existing resistive fuel senders are no longer functioning reliably.
A better display cannot correct limitations originating at the sensor.
That is why fuel quantity should be considered as part of the avionics upgrade itself.
Garmin Installation Documentation Now Includes CiES Fuel Senders
In its installation documentation, Garmin identifies CiES CC284022-series senders for main and auxiliary fuel tank applications and provides interfaces for both 0–5 volt analog and digital fuel quantity signals.
That is an important distinction from traditional resistive fuel quantity systems.
Instead of requiring the avionics system to interpret a resistance value from a conventional resistive sender, CiES sensors provide an electronic output designed for integration with modern aircraft instrumentation.
The result is a fuel measurement architecture much more consistent with the electronics being installed throughout today’s aircraft.
Garmin’s inclusion of CiES interfaces in its installation documentation also simplifies an important question for avionics installers: how will the aircraft’s fuel quantity system communicate with the new avionics?
CiES is already part of that conversation.
There Is More Behind the Sensor Than a Different Output
CiES fuel level sensors are not simply electronic replacements for conventional resistive senders.
The sensing technology itself is different.
CiES sensors use a contactless magnetic position-sensing architecture rather than relying on the electrical resistance generated by a mechanical wiper moving across a resistive element.
That distinction eliminates the resistive contact mechanism that has traditionally been associated with wear, inconsistent electrical contact and changes in indicated fuel quantity as the sender ages.
CiES technology converts fuel level position into a stable electronic signal that can then be provided to the aircraft instrumentation as an analog voltage or, where supported, digitally.
For modern avionics systems, that creates a fundamentally different relationship between the fuel sensor and the display.
Fuel Quantity Should Be Part of the Upgrade Plan
The fuel quantity portion of the new Garmin Axis design
When an aircraft enters the shop for a major avionics installation, much of the airplane is already accessible.
Interior components may be removed. Wiring is being replaced or rerouted. Displays and engine instrumentation are being configured. Technicians are already determining how aircraft systems will interface with the new equipment.
That makes the avionics upgrade an ideal time to evaluate the fuel quantity system.
Consider what is otherwise being done during a typical modernization:
- Mechanical instruments are replaced with electronic displays.
- Aging wiring and connectors are inspected or replaced.
- Engine data is converted to precise electronic signals.
- Navigation equipment is upgraded to modern digital architecture.
- Aircraft information is consolidated onto integrated displays.
Keeping an aging resistive fuel quantity system simply because it is already installed can leave one of the aircraft’s most important operational measurements behind.
The Sensor Matters More Than the Display
There is an important principle in instrumentation:
The display can only report the information it receives.
A high-resolution avionics display does not make an inherently less precise or inconsistent sender more accurate.
Fuel quantity accuracy begins inside the tank.
The sender must first determine the actual position of the fuel level and convert that position into a reliable electrical signal. Only after that measurement occurs can the avionics system calculate and display fuel quantity.
For that reason, upgrading the fuel quantity sender can be just as important as upgrading the instrument displaying the information.
Built for the Aircraft Industry at Scale
CiES Incorporated is the world’s largest manufacturer of aircraft fuel level sensors, supplying fuel measurement technology across a broad range of general aviation, commercial and aircraft manufacturing applications.
Our technology was developed specifically around the requirements of aircraft fuel measurement.
That scale matters.
CiES is not attempting to adapt an industrial level sensor to aviation or produce a specialty sender for a handful of retrofit aircraft. Fuel level sensing is our core technology, and our products are manufactured for aircraft applications ranging from retrofit installations to production aircraft.
The appearance of CiES technology in major avionics installation documentation reflects a broader shift taking place across the industry.
Aircraft instrumentation has moved from mechanical and resistive systems toward increasingly precise electronic measurement.
Fuel quantity follows the same path.
If You Are Modernizing the Aircraft, Modernize the Fuel Measurement
A panel upgrade is an opportunity to improve more than what the pilot sees.
It is an opportunity to improve the quality of the information being delivered to the panel, and the safety of the flight crew and passengers.
When planning a new avionics installation, aircraft owners and installers should ask a simple question:
If we are replacing decades-old instrumentation with modern avionics, does it make sense to leave decades-old fuel sensing technology in the tanks?
Garmin’s installation documentation now provides interfaces specifically for CiES fuel level sensors.
For aircraft owners upgrading their avionics, that makes it easier than ever to bring the fuel quantity system into the same generation as the rest of the panel.
Modern avionics should begin with modern data.
And when it comes to fuel quantity, that data begins at the sensor.
Share this:
About CiES Inc.
CiES designs and manufactures advanced fuel quantity systems for general aviation and transport applications. Through solid-state sensing, fail-evident architecture, and digital avionics integration, CiES has earned a strong reputation for delivering reliable, repeatable fuel measurement and advancing cockpit fuel awareness.
Media Contact
Customer Service
Accuracy Before Empty™
Fuel quantity indication is provided in accordance with applicable FAA certification standards. Pilots must operate the aircraft within approved limitations and procedures.
