TideFlyer....for our club the Avistar is the suggested trainer for many reasons. Too hot? Not if it's propped correctly (11x5 APC) seems to be a sweet spot for the plane & a .46....also throttle usage needs to be taught from the first flight. Too many pilots want to operate at full speed and that's not good because speed makes the controls too responsive relatively speaking. The 11x5 prop works well too for landing...provides some braking.

I still have an Avistar and love it. I modified it to have a bolt on wing with no dihedral and converted it to a tail dragger. It will do 90% of all the advanced maneuvers especially with the controls cranked up a bit excepting the rudder....it seems to over power the other controls (by this i mean max rudder does not balance with max everything else).......nice part about this plane is that you can go from beginner all the way to a very high level of skill and do so while staying within a budget.