Originally Posted by HarryC

For a first use of a gyro you would never take off with the gyro active as catastrophic mistakes can happen in setting reversed travel direction and/or too much gain. Get to a safe height then gently increase the gain or switch gyro on, and be prepared for immediate switch off if the plane goes out of control. If you switch on and can wiggle the controls and the plane is in control, you are safe to proceed testing the gain value. If you have a reversed gyro control you would get to know about it in a nano-second!