Pilot and mechanic here. I’m American but this will apply in other countries too, just change to your language’s acronyms.
On aircraft with standard airworthiness certificates, there’d be at least two people going to prison over this. Standard aircraft require approved parts that are identical to those the aircraft was manufactured with, or any modification from the original design must be done either under the signature of an aeronautical engineer, or much more likely per a Supplemental Type Certificate. If you want to put different sun visors in your Cessna 172, the manufacturer of those new sun visors has submitted paperwork with the FAA and gotten them to issue an addendum to the aircraft’s type certificate to include that modification, which then must live with the airplane’s logbooks for the rest of eternity. Getting that STC comes with some engineering and testing work, which obviously wasn’t done here. If this were an aircraft with a standard airworthiness certificate, the person who sold the part, and the person who installed the part, have committed federal offenses.
This seems to be an Experimental Amateur Built aircraft, which is a Special airworthiness category and class. Most of the rules are out the window and basically anyone can do anything they want to with it, it’s “Experimental.” In exchange for limits on what the aircraft can be used for, generally Experimental aircraft cannot be used for commercial purposes, flight training of other than its owner, etc., the maintenance, inspection and sources of parts requirements are greatly relaxed. If they’d installed one 3D printed from a plastic with a higher glass transition temperature, there’d be an article somewhere praising this excellent application of this cutting edge technology.
Pilot and mechanic here. I’m American but this will apply in other countries too, just change to your language’s acronyms.
On aircraft with standard airworthiness certificates, there’d be at least two people going to prison over this. Standard aircraft require approved parts that are identical to those the aircraft was manufactured with, or any modification from the original design must be done either under the signature of an aeronautical engineer, or much more likely per a Supplemental Type Certificate. If you want to put different sun visors in your Cessna 172, the manufacturer of those new sun visors has submitted paperwork with the FAA and gotten them to issue an addendum to the aircraft’s type certificate to include that modification, which then must live with the airplane’s logbooks for the rest of eternity. Getting that STC comes with some engineering and testing work, which obviously wasn’t done here. If this were an aircraft with a standard airworthiness certificate, the person who sold the part, and the person who installed the part, have committed federal offenses.
This seems to be an Experimental Amateur Built aircraft, which is a Special airworthiness category and class. Most of the rules are out the window and basically anyone can do anything they want to with it, it’s “Experimental.” In exchange for limits on what the aircraft can be used for, generally Experimental aircraft cannot be used for commercial purposes, flight training of other than its owner, etc., the maintenance, inspection and sources of parts requirements are greatly relaxed. If they’d installed one 3D printed from a plastic with a higher glass transition temperature, there’d be an article somewhere praising this excellent application of this cutting edge technology.