Perhaps because Airbus is not French only, even if the French are very good at spreading that notion?
True, but do the Germans routinely use US AN parts in their aircraft?
What does the PC12 use, BTW?
Peter, Airbus sorce parts internationally, all the hardware is to American standard and most of the components are standard, avionics are also international soured.
If you look around a Boeing or Airbus you will find about the same % of standard / international avalable parts to bespoke parts.
In my veiw the British contribution to the early development of Airbus kept the French enthusiasm for all things French in check largely because unlike all the rest of Airbus that was Govenment backed the the Hawker-Siddley part of the partnership was a private venture from a company that was playing with its own money…………… May be the guys from Hatfield did learn something only twenty years before they would have been peeping the ends of bolts on the last of the Dragon Rapide’s !
Getting back to metric aviation hardware, if the Soviets, French or Germans ever did create AN-MS style aircraft hardware standard I bet somebody somewhere still has a copy… I’d like to see it, if it ever existed
Just checked the situation in Russia. Russian aviation fasteners are manufactured under sectoral standards (OST) rather than national ones (GOST), and there are quite a few of them, about 20 different standards just for the bolts – essentially, a separate standard for each kind of bolt. They were introduced between 1972 and 1985. Among others, there are standardized Russian aviation fasteners made of titanium.
here are standardized Russian aviation fasteners made of titanium.
Yes, the titanium stuff from Russia is great. For them it’s really a standard material. I have it on a Russian made boat and when I enquired them why they used titanium bolts, the answer was “why not? It’s a good material”.
Of course there are standards for metric aerospace hardware (like bolts). National, EU-wide and international. And there are plenty of manufacturers. But, Americans have big influence in aviation, especially general aviation. If you want to use a component that requires imperial hardware, you will use imperial hardware. I doubt any GA manufacturer would commission a custom version just so they can go all metric. And USA is a big, “metric-challenged” market. They are in the business to make money.
The fact that you can’t just get aerospace bolts in your average hardware store has probably something to do with position of aviation in EU. And while there are plenty of manufacturers they might not be interested in fulfilling small orders.
Airbus has their own system which is mix of ISO, AN, EN, their own, legacy etc. standards. To them US standards are secondary to ISO. And they try to push their work as EN (and that could then become ISO).
Can anybody provide a link for the standard aircraft approved metric hardware mentioned in posts above, similar to the AN MS catalog I posted. Perhaps from vendor who sells it or once sold it?
I did incidentally wonder how the hell Airbus manages to compete with Boeing on maintenance costs, given the French aviation industry tendency to buy everything possible from French companies even if the price is 10x higher
Peter, Airbus is not Socata. 
Airbus is not just French and is just too big. They don’t even make fuselages wholly in France.
Yes, the titanium stuff from Russia is great. For them it’s really a standard material. I have it on a Russian made boat and when I enquired them why they used titanium bolts, the answer was “why not? It’s a good material”.
I’ve designed and built one-off 70 inch diameter titanium parts, machined out of large ring forgings. Somebody else’s money, as with the Russians who design with it The heel scuff plates in my cars and planes are titanium (there was some thin sheet laying around for too long) attached to the floor mats with AN rivets.
The same thin surplus sheet was used for the firewall on a local Wittman Tailwind, built with ‘real’ money from the owners pocket, possibly the most extreme mismatch of material and application ever implemented. The plane ended up at 854 lbs empty weight, complete with equally out of place autopilot and stressed carbon fiber wing tanks allowing one stop between Oshkosh and anywhere in the U.S. mainland. 
Can anybody provide a link for the standard aircraft approved metric hardware mentioned in posts above, similar to the AN MS catalog I posted. Perhaps from vendor who sells it or once sold it?
@Silvaire, there is a catalog with drawings here (it’s a specialist vendor of aviation hardware), but it’s all in Russian. You can get some information with Google Translate, or if you have a specific question, feel free to ask me.
