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Trevor-
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No, not "down". The weight is substantial compared to the amount of force
the pole puts on the needle. You could look at this as being a dual-axis
device, which responds to local gravitic field AND local magnetic field, and
on this planet the gravitic field is far grosser. That ball may not be
"level", it can even be inverted (if you can gravitize your ceiling) but
the magnetic response is still unaffected as far as I can see. Have you ever
had one hands-on? There's no "bearing" to bind, no needle to jam.  I don't
see any way for an off-level magnetic pull to cause a problem, except in
that the pole may be 'under' rather than 'at' the place the compass is
pointing. Not a problem when we're only using the compass for 2-d
navigation. Possibly a problem if you're planning on taking the REALLY
direct route to China.

<< Or do aircraft simply carry gyros? >>
 Forget commercial aviation, think Piper Cub and bush pilots. Plain old
"general aviation" with individual pleasure operators. They pretty much all
still have a magnetic compass stuck at the top center of the windshield, for
the simple reason that a mag compass is the most robust and failure-proof
navigation instrument they can carry. Gyros are heavy and expensive, even
today. And all the fancy electronics, well, , let's just say all the
newer navigation equipment has far richer options for failure modes.

   

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