Commercial quartz oscillators of the tuning-fork type with a resonant frequency of ∼ 32 kHz have been investigated in helium liquids. The oscillators are found to have at best Q values in the range 10 5 -10 6 , when measured in vacuum below 1.5 K. However, the variability is large and for very low temperature operation the sensor has to be preselected. We explore their properties in the regime of linear viscous hydrodynamic response in normal and superfluid 3 He and 4 He, by comparing measurements to the hydrodynamic model of the sensor.

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Flow due to a commercially available vibrating quartz fork is studied in gaseous helium, He I and He II, over a wide range of temperatures and pressures. On increasing the driving force applied to the fork, the drag changes in character from laminar (characterized by a linear drive vs velocity dependence) to turbulent (characterized by a quadratic drive vs velocity dependence). We characterize this transition by a critical Reynolds number Recrdelta=Ucrdelta/nu, where Ucr is the critical velocity, nu stands for the kinematic viscosity, delta=sqrt[2nu/omega] is the viscous penetration depth, and omega is the angular frequency of oscillations. We have experimentally verified that the corresponding scaling Ucr proportional, sqrt[nuomega] holds in a classical viscous fluid over two decades of nu.