This is not a full report on the new CSM SL560 gyro as I have not yet flown it enough to give a definite answer on just how good it is but my impressions so far are as follows:

I have flown the gyro for 4 flights in my new Millennium, this is equipped with a OS91 SXH coupled to Muscle pipe 2, I converted the Mill to the 91 engine using Robbe's own 90 conversion set which gives a main gear ratio of 7.5 to 1, some feel this is too low a ratio for the OS but I wanted to try it anyway for my own curios

A lot of the problems that guys have had with the OS 91 have been down to running it too fast as this engine does not like to run that fast (it vibrates a lot).  Being aware of this I wanted to keep the engine speed down but as the Muscle Pipe 2 is of a set none adjustable length this didn't work totally as I planned, what I actually got was a engine speed that was maybe higher than hoped (not much) but a little more head speed than planned, the head speed was 1900 rpm which is a little high but not that bad.

The reason I am going on about the head speed when I should be talking about the gyro is the head speed will also effect the tail speed and this will effect gyro performance, my other Mill's run at 1700 with the Webra 75 and now at 1800 with the Webra 91 but it's been a long time since I ran a Mill at 1900 so it makes it harder to make a direct comparison between the gyro's in these models but not impossible.

Anyway so far I would say the gyro is a definite improvement over the ICG540, the tail is more solid in the hover, noticeably less of the twitching around that you get with nearly all HH gyro's other than the JR 6000T, the hold is good but so it is on all the good gyro's now, the consistency of rotation in manoeuvres like pirouetting loops is very good, it even holds well in rippers which is probably the one thing that sorts a really good gyro from a average one.

I suppose I should mention the dreaded drift issue, any drift seems to really bother a lot of guys, it doesn't bother me that much so I don't get so concerned about it but I can honestly say I did keep making the effort to check if it had drifted at all, it didn't at all so far!

I need to do more flying with it which I plan to do in the next few days as the weather is set to improve (I hope) and then I should have a better idea of how it stacks up to the JR6000T which to me is still the ultimate gyro, having said that I didn't feel that the 560 was in anyway holding back my flying so the difference is small anyway and I think for most guys the 560 matched with a decent digital servo will be more than they ever need.  Especially when you think you can buy a 560, a 8700G servo to go with it and still have saved enough off the price of the 6000T to buy a couple of digital servo's for the cyclic!

I have flown the 560 gyro a little more but still not as much as I had hoped to due to the horrible weather last Sunday, see attached photo to see the condition of our flying site, sadly familiar to many in the UK I bet! It was very windy (18mph gusting to over 30) so I really need to get out again in better conditions before I can make any final assessment but again so far I have been nothing but impressed with the gyro.

One thing I did manage to improve on after talking to Colin Mill from CSM was the fast stop, before this was good in one direction but in the other there was some hesitancy to the stop, the tail would stop and then creep on a short way, this was not a real problem more of a annoyance. As with most things this was due to me not reading the instructions fully, I knew there was a slight trim difference between the gyro's heading hold and normal mode but as this was a small difference I had not bothered to correct it manually on the tail linkage as I knew on most gyro's this would not make a noticeable to the performance. 

The 560 is different and has a auto trim facility similar in some ways to the Futaba gyro's but this does more than just allow you to trim the gyro from the transmitter, it gives the gyro a lot more info about the particular models set up and it can fine tune it's self to maximise performance. So if you have a small difference in trim between HH and standard mode all you have to do once you are happy with the trim in HH mode is flick the gain switch a couple of times in the hover and the jobs done. 

I was really impressed with how doing this improved the stop on the gyro, the hesitancy in the stop was completely gone and with it my only real criticism of the gyro, it is certainly very good indeed and as soon as the weather gives me a decent break I will be able to decide if it is "the" gyro. 

Sorry this is all getting drawn out but I can't do anything about the weather, gyro's also take a fair bit more testing than say a engine purely as it takes a fair amount of flying and fiddling to make sure you are getting the best out of them. Also there are a lot of good gyro's out there now and the difference between them is not that great anymore.