On Thursday, July 26, 2012 6:56:48 PM UTC-7, K wrote:
Mr. Weber is a very wealthy man and has his hands in many other ventures as well. He has the means and says he will never let the company go into bankruptcy. In fact with the orders I placed with them to fulfill my USG contract to supply 19 gliders to the USAFA, I am sure they are well in the black. Second, please note aircraft with Experimental certificates that were not certificated in the armature built category still must be maintained safe and airworthy with FAA approved parts. Also, contrary to many beliefs, AD’s can and many times do apply to these aircraft when the same model would have later received a type certificate. In such cases the AD will state in the Applicability section “certified in any category”. Chris Chris, You are not suggesting "Too big to fail" are you. Kidding aside, I have it straight from the FAA (Repeatedly) that an airplane certified in any Experimental category, Including Exhibition and Racing, has no requirement whatsoever to use FAA approved parts. An "Experimental" by its very nature has not been shown (Or have any need to) comply with FAA standards. Why would the parts that make up such an airplane need to be compliant? Are you saying there is FAA approved metric aviation hardware?

OK, I admit the term I used “FAA approved parts” is miss leading and should only be used when referring to aircraft with standard airworthiness certificates. My mistake; however what I should have said is the FAA certifying office is responsible for ensuring the aircraft is safe and airworthy. Aircraft instruments and equipment installed and used must be inspected and maintained in accordance with the applicable requirements of parts 43 and 91. Glider aircraft represent approximately 25 percent of the experimental exhibition fleet and we are privileged to have this category available to us for foreign production aircraft. However, if we in the relatively small soaring community of experimental certificated gliders abuse this privilege it could easily be taken away from us.

The point I am trying to make is we must all be careful what we say on these public forum sites, myself included as you just pointed out, so not to encourage others who may not have the same common sense as you or I to just arbitrarily install un-airworthy parts.

Regarding your question of FAA approved metric hardware, actually for gliders with a TC the hardware used by the manufacturer is FAA approved through the bilateral agreement, most of which it’s quality is controlled by the DIN standards.
Chris