A cool new way to see your actual fuel flow has been on the market now for at least a year and I got to try it out a few months ago. Here are my observations.
The Tiggy Fuel Monitor gives the pilot a direct read of the fuel actually flowing to his motor. It is, to my knowledge, the only device that provides this capability. It gives pilots a unique tool to assess how they’re motor is performing from an efficiency perspective.
Tiggy fuel gauge taped to paramotor comfort bar
Tiggy fuel gauge temporary mount
I attached it to my Black Devil powered machine to see what it actually was. Sadly I didn’t record the numbers in flight but it will be telling to compare different motors on the same wing.
The unit arrived in a really nice box with clear, simple instructions on how to set it up which was easy to do. The button could be easier to push. Installation is brain dead simple although the parts aren’t particularly well suited to round-tube frames. In my case I want to move it quickly from one machine to another so I used gaffers tape which is strong yet doesn’t usually leave a residue. Put this inline with your fuel line but mind the mounting orientation. Fuel line from the tank must be connected to the appropriate nipple and the flow transducer must be level.
Make sure to strain relief the wires, they terminate with just wires going into their plugs.
Weight is only about 9 ounces.
It runs on a 9v battery but accepts voltage all the way up to 28 so could be powered by most on-board electrical sources. Given the small power consumption I wouldn’t bother. Just don’t forget to turn it off with the switch on its 9v case.
You can also use it for telling fuel level by setting the fuel level before takeoff and it will count down how much is left. This should be secondary since it would be easy to enter the wrong starting fuel amount and, if you were to have a leak BEFORE the Tiggy, it would not register the fuel loss.
The readout was easy to see in flight and was very discriminating — responding to even small changes in RPM. There is a slight delay on the flow, maybe 5 seconds, so for testing
It was quite cool being able to see the actual fuel flow and hopefully I’ll be able to incorporate this into some other motor tests when the opportunity arises. For more information or to purchase, visit www.paramotorflyer.com. Here is the Tiggy paramotor fuel gauge PDF manual.