...which is now insisting that the nose
shall always be pointed down.
By "Nose Down"...I assumed you meant that you need to keep forward
pressure to maintain level flight?

The reverse. I pull back on the stick and nothing happens. Calibrating
the joystick shows that no matter what I do pitch wise, the signal is
the same - nose full forward. It's an electrical problem in the
joystick. Yesterday I took it apart, saw nothing obviously amiss,
pulled, pushed, and prodded, and put it back together. Now it seems to
work ok, dunno for how long.

Yes, it has made a down payment on the farm.

Jose
--
"Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can't see where
it keeps its brain." (chapter 10 of book 3 - Harry Potter).
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.