Gyro Use...........
the thing about the fma copilot is when you center your sticks it returns your plane to strait and level flight. that means if you are going vertical, you don't need correction, it wsill bring you back to strait and level flight. that also means, let's say, you want to maintain a down attitude, and it doesn't require a stick motion. basically, you have to keep the sticks off center or it will suddenly return to strait and level flight. i am not a big fan of those. i use a gyro on my plane. i have it on the rudder because i am swinging a huge prop, and when i takeoff, the plane want's to torque really badly. my gyro compensates for that. futaba makes one, the gya351. that has a rate gyro setting, and a heading hold setting. the rate setting means if you have it on your aileron, and your plane banks right for 1 second, it will compensate for one second, starting when it notices the movement. that does not mean it will return you to it's origional heading, but is usefull for gusts. you control the gain and the output. heading hold (sometimes referred to as heading lock) "gives more as it get's more" that means, that when you move your plane, it gives a signal to the servo to move the surface perportionatly. let's use my case. my plane yaws right. the farther it goes off heading, the more rudder is given. so, the more the plane moves back to it's origional course, the less gyro imput there is. that will bring you back to the heading you were at previously, but it will not necessarily return you to the strait line you were flying on before it was moved. gyros sell for about $150. so basically, to put this entire messsage into one sentence, gyros compensate for unwanted movement. they are particualrly usefull in tail draggers, and on windy days. in comparrisson to the copilot, the copilot does not compensate for unwanted movement. all it does is bring you up to a strait line if you are about to crash. that's your instructors job. the copilot will not teach you to land or takeoff, as an instructor will. copilots do not replace instructors. and if you do have an instructor, you don't need the copilot anyway. also, you have to mount them outside the plane, and they look really ugly. gyros can be mounted anywhere. inside or out. hope this helps.