John, Don, I'm looking for some input on the amount of gain your gyros have and what brands they are.

Some time back I used an old Kraft mechanical gyro with good results, especially considering the state of the art in gyros & servos at the time. More recently I bought an "Ikarus Micro Gyro" from Hobby Lobby for my F3F. The gain of this gyro seems much lower. Even at max gain and swinging the tail of the plane from side to side quite rapidly I only get about 5° rudder deflection. On my old Cub with the Kraft gyro it seemed like the rudder would nearly hit the stops if I swung the tail so quickly.

None of the gyros that I've looked at advertise their gain range. You'd think at least some of the helicopter guys would be sophisticated enough to ask about that.

I haven't flown my F3F yet, but I'm thinking the gyro won't be adequate even at max gain. I did try an Ikarus in my GWS Tiger Moth 400 just to evaluate performance. The gyro had very little effect in the TM, but I chalked that up to the very docile behavior of the basic airplane and the fact that the servos aren't particularly fast. Now I'm beginning to think I'm just short on gain.

I do understand the problems of excessive gain, but from prior experience I don't think I'm even close to that end of the spectrum. How sensitive are your gyros when you swing the tail from side to side ?

Dick Fischer