Yes JR Americas has had their challenges for a couple of years now. I got both of my XS’s from them. One in Canada and the one I built in Hawaii is now in Cali soon to be in AZ. When I needed a second Mini Avanti, the first one I had obtained from the fellow in Las Vegas, JR Americas was still waiting on the container. Likely, at least in my opinion, a tall tale. I emailed Seba in Italy and I was surprised at how little extra it was to ship just one plane from Italy to Canada, and how fast it came too! To be fair I think it was about $100US more to do it that way than to have JR Americas sell and ship it to me, but they have none and given the closure of JR Corp in Japan, I have no confidence that they ever will have any SebArt product again. I have ordered twice from Seba personally and both times it went well, other than a FedEx issue. The two Avanti XS’s I got from JR Americas, never came with pipes or tanks, as they are in a separate add on kit, which was never ever ordered by them, also the stands (I recommend the SebArt one highly) were never ordered either as far as I could tell. Seba had everything in stock, and shipped in a couple of days, taking a week to get to Canada. I suppose the drawback ordering directly from SebArt is the bank wire transfer. That is the only way he will ship anything, money first, then he ships. However; at least Seba has had what he says he will have, unlike another Italian firm’s very many missed dates. I guess this all depends upon how much you want the plane...hassle-wise that is. I can heartily recommend the XS, but to be fair I have only about a dozen flights on the two planes. In the first one here in Canada I had some gear controller issues so I got only 4 flights and then I was away for the winter where I built the other and got 8 or so on it. In HI we only get the runway on Sundays and maybe not even then. I did get very comfortable with the plane and it flies better than the Mini Avanti on which I had well over a hundred flights before donating it to the AZ Desert floor! My fault, zigged instead of zagged.

Hope this helps...
Len