Early end?

After finally having all the parts and having everything put together I was excited to make a test flight. I took the heli outside and fired it up. Before lifting from the ground the heli started tilting to the side. I tried to correct that with some input from the transmitter and it started tilting forward So I tried correcting that as well and eventually the heli departed from the ground to the height of 1 inch above ground when the heli started spinning around and crashed.

Bummed out. Not what I was hoping for.

A close inspection revealed the swash plate was not level anymore with zero throttle. Can the servos get out of tune so easily?

I disconnected the swash plate and retrimmed the servos. I then re set the swashplate links as level as I could. To address the spinning out of control issue I also remounted the gyro this time in a different orientation. Originally it was mounted "face" up (labels) with the wire connections in the back. This time around I mounted it face back with connection to the side:

I then took it for another test flight. This time the leveling was much better. Still had to input some corrections, but very minimal. Unfortunately as soon as it lifted off the ground it started spinning out of control again and crashed, this time doing damage to the main gear:

Some of the teeth have been damaged. the motor can still rotate the rotor, but I am skeptical about it's performance abilities at the moment. This damage was added to the previously damage that was done to the blades:

At this point I feel that this has been a very expensive failure and waste of time, but because of the expense involved I cannot just let it lie and I feel somewhat obligated to get this to work. 

I did some test by connecting power to the heli and inducing sharp movements to the tail (simulating the forces put on my the mail rotor /winds trying to rotate the heli on it's main rotor axis) I was expecting to see some reaction by the gyro to compensate for this, but noticed absolutely nothing. I took the gyro off the heli and manually rotated it and moved it around - it definitely reacted to those movements by moving the rudder, but when placed back on the back of the heli it doesn't exhibit the same reactions even when I induce pretty severe (sharp fast turns) to the heli tail... not sure what's going on here, but I strongly believe that this non functionality of the gyro is what's causing the spinning-out-of-control crash issues and need to resolve this - at this point with no idea how to approach it. 

FWIW the gyro is connected to ch4 on the receiver, and the 1 extra wire is connected to ch5, but I have not done any special programming to accommodate for ch5 functionalities. I do have rudder functionalities with the transmitter, and when off the heli as stated above the gyro does seem to exhibit some functionality.

I feel the need to put this 'project' aside for the moment being and clear my mind, perhaps order a new main gear while at it, and some training bars (to help reduce the crash severity hopefully).

very disappointing. I think this is where most people would give up on this and quit. it's just not my thing  I've also invested too much in this to just let it go and most importantly - I'm still very much interested in flying helis. 

A couple of thoughts come to mind - mainly that the gyro might be setup in reverse and instead of correcting the yaw, adds to it making it worse.... hmmm... I wonder if the main gear is capable enough to stand another trial flight.