Wow Hank! This is an extremely timely post. A good friend (Gremlin Castle on RCU) bought a GY401 this week for use on his big DC-3. I ordered one for use on my 1/3 scale Bucker Jungmeister. As you probably know there is very little information out there on airplanes in comparison to helicopters.

I probably have at least 60 flights on my Jungie but I've always toyed with the idea of installing a rudder gyro in it because like jjmretired's plane the gear is really forward and any amount of cross wind (common here in Texas) wants to make it weather vane pretty strongly. Of course adding the right amount of rudder is the key. I often get too much or too little. I don't have this problem with the other gassers that I fly. I am using a single Hitec HS-635HB in pull-pull on the rudder.

You said: "Then, turn off HH mode by switching switch E. Carry the plane to the flight line and, when it's lined up with the runway heading you want, switch back to HH mode and wait 3-4 seconds while the gyro initializes. Then move the rudder stick back and forth a couple of times and then center it. Don't forget this last step or the rudder may have an offset."

It is not really practical for me to carry a 27# plane out to the runway with the engine running and place it in position for takeoff. It would seem to me that once you initialized the gyro in AVCS mode you could taxi out, using the rudder stick, and line up with the direction that you expected the AVCS to hold without waiting the 3-4 seconds and moving the rudder stick back and forth. Am I wrong in understanding that the AVCS constantly updates the desired direction as the rudder comes back to neutral?

You said: "After takeoff (or if you get into trouble) turn switch E off and you are back to regular rudder control.

What I use the gyro for is on rudder for 3d Hovering and torque rolls. I take off in with switch E off and turn it on in flight when I'm ready for some 3D. Then I move the rudder back and forth a couple of times before going vertical and center the aircraft." Do you take off with the AVCS on or off? These two statements seem to conflict. Are you saying that the gyro has to be initialized before you pull up into a hover? Does the gyro have to go through an initialization process every time you move the switch from normal to AVCS? I thought that I understood that the initialization only took place one time during a flight when the receiver was turned on after the transmitter had been turned on with the switch in the AVCS mode. Right/wrong?

At this point my only intention in using the AVCS is for takeoff.

Thanks a lot for your help Hank, I'm in the learning mode at this time.