Actually, you've raised two interesting concepts. First, sensing via a pressure sensor hadn't occurred to me, so I'm smacking myself for that. It's obviously a fairly simple solution, and easily added as extra inputs to most monitoring devices (and my glass cockpit).

But more importantly, fuel level itself is an instant indication of what's going on. If you're crossfeeding it without knowing it (because the solenoid failed, even though you didn't mean to crossfeed) your fuel level is going to rise in one tank, so anything that tracks such information can figure out what's going on and warn you.

Thanks,
Chad

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Slade [mailto:sladerj@bellsouth.net]
> Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2003 12:06 PM
> To: Rotary motors in aircraft
> Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Fwd: Fuel systems
>
>
> Chad,
> Good questions, all.
> The solenoid is a pretty simple device. Give it a couple of
> amps and it
> clicks. Take em away and it clicks again. I've been thinking
> about a way to
> monitor the solenoid position but havent come up with one yet.  On
> epossibilit might be a pressure sensor in each return line.
> My initial plan
> is to keep a close eye on the fuel state of each tank
> (always) using my
> capacitance and sight guages. Hopefully I'd spot any transfer
> anomoly. Down
> the road I'll look into a detection system, but right now I need to
> concentrate on getting this plane in the air. Its amazing how much
> complexity you can add based on a "simple" idea.
> Regards,
> John
>
>
>
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