Heading Hold
A heading hold gyro (when in heading hold) will keep the helicopter pointed in the direction the pilot last pointed it no matter what's going on. The wind can blow all it wants and the helicopter will stay pointing in your chosen direction. This is really good for hovering cause it allows you to concentrate on everything else that's going on, comfortable that the gyro is looking after the tail. It's also really handy in fast backward flight. In normal mode (ie non-heading hold mode), the tail will tend to wander when flying backwards. However, in Heading Hold mode it won't. I personally, find it really handy when flying inverted. I've got my hands full with the rest of the controls and it's nice to not have to worry about compensating for wind, weathervaning etc when you're upside down :). Most heading hold gyros will do both heading hold and non-heading hold. Most also have the ability to be remotely adjusted from the transmitter (in my opinion, an invaluable function). Gyro's come in all sizes for all budgets. There are many 'non-name brand' gyros that are cheap, but once you get advanced you'll probably find yourself looking to a more able system.

Which engine?

Like many other things, a good engine is worth it's weight in gold. A sub-standard engine that won't run will send you to the crazy house and maybe (God forbid) make you give up this hobby altogether. Most helicopters will have a recommended engine. The most popular type of engine in R/C helicopters is the glow engine which takes a fuel mixture of nitromethane, synthetic (or castor) oil and methanol. There are other alternatives though, including electric powered helicopters and petrol engined helicopters.

You can get either two-stroke or four stroke engines.
There are a number of different engine manufacturers around, OS, YS, Thunder Tigre, Novarossi, Rossi, etc. In New Zealand, the most popular make of engine is the OS two stroke engine line. Again, engines come in all different sizes. In the two stroke line for helicopters there are the 30 size engines followed by the 46, 50, 60 and lately the 80 and 90 sizes for larger helicopters. You want to match the engine capacity to the size recommended by your helicopter kit manufacturer. When you're looking to buy an engine, you've got to take into account a number of things. Some of these are:

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