Fuel Gauge ID please

How about a Shorts Singapore III , 395 gallons x 2 upper tanks.

A reproduction Spitfire fuel gauge. Very similar to a real one.

In the fuel gauge under investigation, the scale goes up to 340 gallons, but the red lettering says 395.

Not unusual to have ‘ungauged’ fuel in aircraft,on older jets for example – the drop tanks were often ungauged and your only confirmation of them ‘feeding’ was the behaviour of the main gauges.
Same for some car tanks – some cars you can ‘squeeze’ more fuel in than the nominal ‘gauge full’ calibration and the fuel gauge shows ‘full’ for quite a long time when you are driving.
The OP gauge would be similar in that once the tank was feeding – after a short while it would start registering the fuel remaining quantity.

Upper tank, would that not indicate a single tank, possibly centrally located and that the aircraft also had a lower fuselage tank?

For comparison, a Spitfire fuel gauge
[ATTACH=CONFIG]249881[/ATTACH]

Unlike the fuel gauge from post 1, the scale and red lettering match in terms of fuel amount.
In the fuel gauge under investigation, the scale goes up to 340 gallons, but the red lettering says 395.

Looking at the indications given above on year, I’m leaning towards Short S.26 (1939).

Consider also that the earlier Short Sunderland had six drum fuel tanks with a total capacity of 9,200 litres (2,025 Imperial gallons, 2,430 U.S. gallons), while four smaller fuel tanks were added later behind the rear wing spar to give a total fuel capacity of 11,602 litres (2,550 Imperial gallons, 3,037 U.S. gallons). average 2025/6=337.5 gallons per drum fuel tank.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]249882[/ATTACH]
Here wing tanks are 529 (forward inner 1), 325 (forward inner 2) and 132 (forward outer) imp. gallon (average 329). Backed by a 111 im. gallon rear inner tank and 147 imp. gallong rear outer tank.

Smiths electrical fuel contents gauges make a prototype appearance in 1934-5 Air Annual of the British Empire and in the following year’s volume with the familiar look of the mystery gauge. In AP 1275 Instrument Manual 1937, reprinted in Jan 1939, they are described, but the statement is made that they are not part of the RAF Stores system, so the fixing of a 6A number implies a post 1939 instrument. I concur with my learned colleagues that the lack of the tail down scale implies a flying boat, as much as the gross quantity of fuel.

The Short Bros Empire Flying boats of 1936 were initially equipped with 600 gallons of fuel capacity but this was later increased up to threefold. However the “No 6009” is reminiscent of Supermarine part numbering. Supermarine Stranraer? Hold it closely to your ear and see if you can hear some faint Glen Miller, which would place it about 1940…

Not Hampden as they do not go over 100.

Not Stirling as the gauges are individually numbered 1 to 7

John

I agree about the taildragger bit. That’s why a flying boat makes sense. 340 Gal is a lot. Also, the Air Ministry number is an early one – pre-war I would say.

The fact that this is for the “upper tank”, and the capacity is 340gal, it seems more than likely that this was used in a large multi-engine aircraft.

Those Smiths gauges used in early WWII taildraggers like the Blenheim and Hampden sometimes had two index readings on the same scale, one reading normal flight and the other ‘tail on ground’. This has only ‘normal flight’. Which probably doesn’t mean much since I believe that most or all large British aircraft seem to be taildraggers anyway.

The fuel gauges on Lancasters seem to be of a more contemporary design than this generation Smiths (look at Spitfirespares website), so I’d look for examples of instrument panels from the Stirling and Manchester.

I’ve just perused my Australian cross reference of instruments used in RAAF/RAF aircraft and 6A/626 did not appear on the list. However, the Stirling and Manchester did not appear on the list. Unfortunately I don’t have the flight manuals for these two aircraft.

Good luck, and let us know what you find.

Biplane Flying Boat?

I assume its not from a single engined aircraft but more likely a twin engine or 4 engine aircraft?