We employ various small oscillators to generate and probe laminar and turbulent flows in normal liquid and superfluid helium. We are mostly focused on the use of small quartz tuning forks and microwires, which allow direct measurements of relevant drag forces as a function of the flow velocity. Quartz tuning forks are manufactured commercially as frequency standards, having a typical resonance frequency in the order of tens of thousands of hertz. Electrical measurements of the fork velocity as a function of driving force, which can be transformed to a simple VA characteristic, allow us to probe critical velocities leading to the transition between the laminar and turbulent regimes in the flow, in both normal liquid and superfluid He.
