I'm reading these series of articles many years after they were originally posted and they are still incredibly useful if you are discovering the newer FC2 like me. Many thanks!

About the "ALT" button on the autopilot panel:

You asked why the "altitude" or "ALT" light was ON when you selected "Attitute Hold". The answer is that the English cockpit has been wrongly labelled. On the Russian cockpit the button says "AY" (or "AU" in Latin alphabet) for "Auto Urobiya" or "Auto Level". So there you go, it should say "AL" not "ALT"