Steve, in response to your questions:

The Heli-Chair is simply an extension of the radio transmitter and thus
any mixing function, program or configuration that you can setup on a
Futaba, JR or whatever it is...you can do it with the controls of the
Heli-Chair.

I do have a gyro on the tail. I found that unless you have a perfectly
slop free and stiction free linkage (also friction free) you really do
need a gyro or it will be unpredictable. Like you said though, heading
hold is definitely cheating!

Some of the people that have purchased my Heli-Chair have done so
having absolutely no remote control helicopter experience. For that
reason alone, when I ship them a unit it includes a program with
throttle mixed to collective appropriately. The main purpose of this
is to give them a way to judge what the proper rotor speed is. They
can choose to learn in that mode for a while, then switch over and do
the controls independently. I also program revo mixing on the third
mode to use to make things easier to get used to. I make sure to point
out in the "pilot's operating handbook" that these are learning aids
and not the way a real helicopter will work. Students take advantage
of these programming modes to help get a head start and then turn them
off as soon as possible.

I have a video on the website that shows all this quite nicely. It is
a 30 minute orientation video found in this folder:
http://www.heli-chair.com/videos_pub...over_training/

The filename of that training video is "heli-chair_training_1.wmv" You
can also locate the PDF pilots operating handbook at:
http://www.heli-chair.com/heli_chair...HC_1_POH_2.pdf

kas