Maybe I'm a bit premature posting this since I haven't had much time to troubleshoot yet. But, I'm at work now and can't stop thinking about it.

I just received my APM2 a couple days ago. I got it all hooked up and loaded with the firmware as per the guide. The problem I'm having is that when I have it in manual mode and the transmitter is just sitting there with sticks centered and throttle at zero the APM seems to be wigging out. The control surfaces all bounce around the motor randomly spins (glad I decided to take off the prop). Also the rudder deflects full right.

If I move the sticks the plane seems to responds correctly, except maybe the rudder, but when I center everything again it starts freaking out. 

I tried switching it to stabilize and it seemed to do better and it responds whenever I pitch or roll the plane.

Any thoughts? Was there a calibration step I missed or something?  I did the calibrate radio part that is in the guide.

Also, I'm not sure if it is related but when I tried to do a manual level I got an error saying something like "unable to level, APM +2.?? required."