I live in fear that one day I will need some semi-trivial inexpensive
part (i.e. springs in the airbrakes) for my glider and have to pay the
"DG-ransom" to obtain said part, back dated to time immemorial.

On top of that my glider has a Standard Airworthiness Certificate
(rather than Experimental*) which limits what I can do to replace that
semi-trivial inexpensive part. Any thoughts on conversion from
Standard to Experimental? Does that help me in any way? Or is there
a downside such as lowering the resale value?

Thanks, John

* I own a DG-101G ELAN. If you look at
http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinqu...DG-10&PageNo=1
you will find that it is about 50/50 if any particular DG-10X is
Standard or Experimental certified. Was it common practice back in
the 80's to pick/choose Standard versus Experimental? What was the
rational when choosing one over the other? It seems that many/most
newer gliders are Experimental. So I ask again, would it help me to
reclassify my ship as Experimental? If so, how complicated is it to
make the change?