Tower lists this as discontinued. What's going on?

The sells were probably down on it. The best bet is to buy the ARF and install a .46 and radio. My son's is a RTF and the .40 flies it very well, but a .46 would really wake it up.

With Horizon taking their Alpha series to the 2.4 realm I wouldn't be surprised if the Avistar was in development for a little while updating their system... clearing out the on hand stock to make room for the latest and greatest????

That wouldn't be bad at all. A 2.4 system and a .46 engine.

In stock as of 12:51 PM on 12/17/2008.

Now it says discontinued again (2:30pm 12/17).

I flew this plane with a 46AX, and especially since they advertise it as a 'step up' from a trainer, I think a repackage with a .46 and better radio would be appropriate.

Who the heck wants a .40LA?

Why? Are you giving one away?

Yes, recently Horizon listed the Alpha 40 RTF as discontinued and within weeks the new 2.4 GHz Alpha 40 RTF was listed as "Coming soon".

The Avistar Select RTF has been shipping with the .46 LA for about a year now, ever since Hobbico quit importing the .40 LA. The .46 LA is a good match for the Avistar, although the .40 LA flew it just fine so long as you'd mowed your runway within the last two weeks or so.

The Avistar Select RTF had also been bundled with the long-since discontinued Futaba 4VF transmitter. It's probably a safe guess that a radio repackaging is underway.

It looks like more changes might be coming, the Superstar Select RTFs are at three different price points depending on color, and the red ones are listed as "Order Pending." Tower also dropped the Tower Trainer .40 Mk II ARF back down to $59.99. It's all very curious...

Ramboy, did you ever call Tower and ask them what's going on?

All you can expect to get through a forum is speculation and there has been a good bit of that. If you did call them I doubt they gave much info. The people answering the phone probably do not know any more than the rest of us. The people who do know what is planned are not allowed to discuss it.

The only "facts" we have regarding the 'Hobbico xxx Select RTF' models is that the advertised engine (OS 40LA) and radio (Futaba 4VF) are discontinued items. There was a comment that they have been shipping with the 46LA. I do not know about that, but, none of the product descriptions at Tower or Hobbico say anything about it.

There is lots of speculation about them being repackaged with a great 46 engine and 2.4ghz radio. Maybe that will happen, but, there's nothing on the Futaba site about an entry level 2.4 system. I doubt that we'll see the 6EX as part of an RTF package and that's the cheapest 2.4 system currently available from Futaba.

As of thirty seconds ago they were listed as in stock limited quantities. for 299.