There have been lots of discussions about this over the last couple of month. The current consent in FAI contests is that they are considered illegal!
I personnally think they should not be used, but here are my experiences with gyros in sailplanes:
pros:
- rudder gyro keeps the tail straight when shooting a crosswind landing.
- aileron gyros are very helpful to keep the plane level when landing in a strong rotor.
cons:
- any gyro action prevents the pilot from reading air, you'll miss thermals, it slows you down on the slope.
- a pitch gyro maintains the planes attitude, but what you really want is to keep your airspeed constant!
I will continue using them in PSS to help with the landings but banned them from all the sailplanes (E or winch).
ingo
