# Are solid-state attitude indicators subject to gimbal lock?

With all the shiny new glass cockpits it would seem that the days of the spinning mechanical gyro (and associated tumbling due to gimbal lock) should be over: Sparing everyone the boring math it should suffice to say that solid-state gyros can be engineered and built in such a way that gimbal lock is impossible, but I'm not certain that's how they're actually designed.

Do modern AHRS systems with solid-state gyros (or replacement electronic horizons like the RC Allen 2600 series) still suffer from gimbal lock, or do they provide true 3-dimensional freedom?

I'm interested primarily in answers from a light General Aviation standpoint, but answers about electronic gyros on commuter and transport category aircraft would be interesting too.

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Specific attitude limitations would lead me to believe they're using X/Y/Z (Euler) coordinates directly instead of deriving them (so "It's not gimbal locked" (because there are no gimbals), but the effect is largely the same (big red X on the attitude display when you exceed the limitations until the gyro can be reset)) –  voretaq7 Feb 11 '14 at 20:23