The non fuctioning rudder rate switch on my eclipse has been resolved happily and it was my fault. Good thing I did some more checking before packing it up. Being a heavy Prism 7 user a bunch of my pylon ships are on the Prism's and only two on the Eclipse, well in the heat of a forced change to a backup in mid event which was on the eclipse, I had brain fade with the two radios having rudder rate in entirely different positions. Also the apparent intermitant aileron rate loss was a result of confussion under pressure and a simple misplacement of the curser.
This may be a similar situation to Daves problem above. At any rate (pun intended) all is right with the world and I have sent some 555's back for repair, I still fantasize about getting through a race season without loseing a ship.
John