jcarlyle wrote:
At least for my LS8-18, the feds can get you another way - a compass
is on the Minimum Equipment List. So my glider is required to have a
"magnetic direction indicator".

No. That is not what the minimum equipment list means.

Only a government agency could come up with something like this: A
Minimum Equipment List (MEL) is an FAA approved list of instruments that
may be *defective* and still have the aircraft to be considered airworthy.

See section 6.p
http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgAdvisoryCircular.nsf/0/13c094a06437c5fa862569d900744d86/$FILE/Chap1-2.pdf

Tony V LS6-b "6N"