![]() ![]() Don’t tolerate fuel gauges that don’t tell you how much fuel you have. With anything this safety-critical, you should have multiple means of cross-checking. Too many general aviation accidents result from fuel mismanagement. If the powered crossflow system fails, the flight crew can select the. I explained to the captain that the fuel quantity system (fqs) is very accurate and if no faults were displayed that there was nothing wrong with the system. At that point, the fact that the needles point to zero will be little consolation. quantity is less than 900 lbs (408 kg) the fuel quantity indication on the primary. Without working fuel gauges you might not know it-until the tanks are empty. But what if you made a mistake in the measurement or the calculation? What if you forgot to secure a fuel cap and now you’re venting fuel? What if the engine is burning more fuel than usual? Even if you have a fuel totalizer, it could be miscalibrated or it could have an incorrect starting fuel amount. You measured the amount of fuel on board before flight, calculated your fuel burn, and determined how long you could fly for, including the required fuel reserve. ![]() Then there’s the common sense safety issue. The new FAR 23.2430 says that fuel systems must provide the flightcrew with a means to determine the total usable fuel available. In 2017, FAR 23 was rewritten, eliminating that wording. ![]() This immediately followed FAR 23.1337(b), which stated that there must be a means to indicate to the flightcrew members the quantity of usable fuel in each tank during flight. An indicator that’s only accurate when the tanks are empty doesn’t satisfy that requirement. But zero usable fuel isn’t the only time they’re required to be accurate. FAR 23.1337(b)(1) stated that each fuel quantity indicator must be calibrated to read ‘zero’ during level flight when the quantity of fuel remaining in the tank is equal to the unusable fuel supply. In other words, fuel gauges should be calibrated in terms of remaining usable fuel. The common misconception originates from the pre-2017 version of FAR 23 for aircraft certification. It affected 3,200 Airbus and Boeing aircraft with center wing fuel tanks with ECS systems below that could heat residual fuel. The FAA estimated industry compliance costs at the time of its release in 2008 at 800m. If the tanks are half full, a gauge that reads empty is not doing its FAR 91.205 mandated job. It was a significant change in rules, however. FAR 91.205 says that a fuel gauge indicating the quantity of fuel in each tank is required equipment. “Common sense would suggest this isn’t true, and, in fact, it isn’t. ![]()
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