The 401 isn't nearly as complicated as the instructions make it.

The only reason to fly in normal is to trim the gyro.

Picture the gyro gain on a 401 as being on a transmitter knob. Full left on the knob is 100 percent gain in avcs and full right on the knob is 100 percent gain in normal (rate) mode.

As you start to turn the knob from full left the gain goes down until you reach the half way point from left to right, at this point your at 0 gain, the gyro is esentially off. As you continue to the right you are now in normal mode and increasing the gain until you reach the right when you are at 100 percent gain in normal. When the knob is half way between centered and full right, your in normal mode at 50 percent gain, when the knob is half way between full right and center then your in AVCS mode with 50 percent gain.

Know instead of a knob picture a toggle switch, usually the gear switch. Where you set its right end point is your gain in AVCS and where you set your left end point is where your gain ends up in normal.

Now some of the fancy radios let you tie the gyro gain to flight mode, though there's really no good reason to do so. Its nothing more than a mix that says when I flip to flight mode idle up one, then I'm going to set my gear channel at x and when I flip it to flight mode idle 2 then its going to set it to y. x and y being some value for gyro gain but its nothing more than what you can set on a toggle switch.

The gyro menu is the same deal, its a mix that sends the channel 5 position to a predetermined value that tells the gyro what gain to run. In this case you just leave the end points at 100 and let the gyro menu set the throw. The gyro menu just breaks down each side of that knob into a value from 0 to 100 instead of the atvs where you are working with numbers between 50 (neautral) and 100.

http://www.futaba-rc.com/team/team-tip-002.html