"Roger" wrote in message
...
To paraphrase the manual for my auto-pilot. When encountering more
than moderate turbulence, turn off the autopilot. I believe Pete
touched on this as well.

Driving an auto-pilot too hard can put your servos on the rate limit. On a
rate limit, a servo develops serious amplitude-dependent lag, which can
destabilize your loop closures. THe way arount this problem? Big, huge,
powerful, fast servos. This solution opens up a whole other can of worms.

All it takes is money. The less ingenuity, the more money.

Being intimate with the hazards associated with such a project, I would
never recommend this as a casual development project. In this case, less
ingenuity means great exposure to serious hazards. It all seems so simple in
concept, but the devil.......

Counteracting very quickly with a lightly loaded wing could possibly
break something very quickly as well.

And that's just one of the hazards.

I haven't seen any prices on the components for a solid state gyro.

The ones the R/C guys use, which are, in my opinion, quite rugged and
accurate enough for this kind of an application, pretty innexpensive. I
think I saw one model that sold for under $200. Systron-Donner makes
single-axis chips for (working from memory) under $500. Full 6-dof Motion
Packs go for around $20k. I think Crossbow has a 6-dof package for under
$12k.

Build in sufficient disconnects so if it goes TU you can put the
greasy side on the bottom again.

Yup. On the stick. Fly it with a gun to it's head.