Simplified Fuel Systems for Light Aircraft

Considerable loss of life, injury, property damage, and monetary loss is caused by improper fuel management of both single and multiengine general aviation aircraft each year. To reduce this loss, it is up to the manufacturer to design simplicity into the operation of fuel systems so that ultimately, the pilot need only turn his fuel system on prior to each flight without any further requirements for fuel management until engine shutdown. The fuel capacity required by the modern high performance single and twin engine aircraft generally requires multiple tank fuel systems with the associated selector valves that require numerous careful and timely tank selections during the course of the flight.

It is the object of this paper to describe the history of development of the multiple tank fuel system used in all the AEROSTAR series of aircraft. The finalized system is an on-off system that does not require any in-flight fuel management and is of a fail-safe type of design.