How to get the current attitude of a vessel?

[uNiverselEgacy]

First I have to say I'm still a noob. I was trying to learn to write a simple auto pilot module for airplanes. I use MechJeb as the main reference but the problem is that it is so complicated that half the code doesn't make sense to me. I did sort of figure out how to control the main throttle and thus the speed of the airplane, but I have absolutely no idea how rotation works. I don't even know how to tell if the airplane is upside down or not, let alone correcting its attitude to face the desired direction.

I really appreciate any help including code examples/tutorial articles/links.

[Crzyrndm]

Pilot Assistant *may* be a simpler alternative to Mechjeb since its a much smaller mod focusing on plane control only. You can see the vessel control function here and all the primary data gathering is handled here. Also some useful basic example code for this stuff on the wiki

Edited March 9, 2016 by Crzyrndm