Penny & Giles

Penny + Giles was founded in 1956 out of a partnership between Professor William A Penny and Mr James A Giles, where they identified a demand for instrumentation in the aviation industry for high precision, high reliability wire-wound potentiometric devices for customers engaged in aircraft flight testing.

Developments in 1957 led to the first aircraft accident data recorder based on magnetic recording of data on stainless steel wire (popularly known as the 'Black Box'). During 1963, the UK Ministry of Aviation gave notice of a mandatory requirement for passenger carrying civil aircraft to be equipped with accident data recording systems, and Penny + Giles were well placed to supply sensors and recorders for these systems.

Through the following decades, Penny + Giles developed technologies and products for diverse markets such as professional broadcasting and recording, motor controllers for powered wheelchairs, paperless chart recorders and trackerballs for computer interfacing. Many of these autonomous business units have been divested during the last decade.

Our product range includes linear and rotary position sensors; LVDT and RVDT transducers; joystick controllers; studio faders; digital panel meters; solenoids; cockpit voice and flight data recorders; air data test sets; pitot-static leak testers; ice & snow detection systems.

Penny + Giles' success in world markets results from innovative technology, creative designs, manufacturing excellence and interactive customer support. For more than 50 years we have built an unsurpassed store of experience which is supported by high precision engineering.