Why does Horizon keep discontinuing awesome airplanes?!

[CZ Flyer]

My 3 favorites in the past couple months! Prometheus, CZ Cub & CZ T-28. I hope it's to make room for another war bird the same size as the T-28! C'mon 80" Bearcat!

[AZFlyer]

Nope. Plane (LOL) economics. Too many different planes out there for the demand. Simple econ 101. It's a shame.

We all want inexpensive planes and then wonder why the seller can't make money.

How about Universal RC? Free planes for all!!! :Cool:

[CZ Flyer]

Nope. Plane (LOL) economics. Too many different planes out there for the demand. Simple econ 101. It's a shame.

We all want inexpensive planes and then wonder why the seller can't make money.

How about Universal RC? Free planes for all!!! :Cool:

Didn't know Bernie Sanders flew rc! :)

[rifleman_btx]

Didn't know Bernie Sanders flew rc! :)

Hahahaha yes!

[benjack71]

Horizon has always had a reputation for discontinuing planes. Tower with topflite and great planes was always better about models sticking around for a few years and parts availability. Once Horizon discontinues something the parts go away fast.

[CZ Flyer]

Horizon has always had a reputation for discontinuing planes. Tower with topflite and great planes was always better about models sticking around for a few years and parts availability. Once Horizon discontinues something the parts go away fast.

Yip. Was able to rebuild my CZ Cub this time with the only new part required being 1 strut! I was really surprised how well it went back together. I ordered a fuse, landing gear, struts & a rudder fin anyway. will probably get 1 more set of struts & a pair of wings for spares just in case.

[xviper]

Nope. Plane (LOL) economics. Too many different planes out there for the demand. Simple econ 101. It's a shame.

We all want inexpensive planes and then wonder why the seller can't make money.

How about Universal RC? Free planes for all!!! :Cool:

Horizon is no longer a little start up company. They've got bean counters who constantly look at the bottom line. What might be someone's "favorite" planes may not be the favorite planes of enough others whereby they drop their money down and buy one, thus keeping the bean counters happy.
Of the 3 planes first mentioned, I've owned the CZ Cub, got bored with it and sold it. Those who saw my Cub, thought it was a noteworthy plane but not enough actually went and bought one. Also the initial reports of failed ESCs resulting in crashes kept fence sitters away. I still own the CZ T-28 and it gets flown every few weeks, so by no means is it my favorite. Again, those who see it haven't been buying it. There have been 2 Prometheus's at my field and they didn't do anything for me, so never considered buying one. The problem being that there aren't enough people who gravitate towards certain products, no matter how much the few who have them and love them. They won't keep in production what won't keep the sales numbers up and what might be lingering in warehouses and store shelves don't help the matter any either.
The "Too many different planes out there for the demand" statement is so true.

[rifleman_btx]

Agreed.. and what I've been saying for a bit.

[JFandL]

Horizon

has always did this not just of late. Sad as they have had some real nice warbirds in the past but!!!! the one that gets me is they drop their P-51, next week they bring out a new one, then drop that one, and next month another P-51 shows up.

[Evoman]

I also agree with the simple economics of having too many nitch market airplanes. They just wont sell well enough to keep them in production for too long.
One good example of a model that Horizion did make a good decision in bringing to market was the new AT-6. The model was already popular but no one else was really offering a good version of it.
I have already seen the new AT-6 selling well and there is a good chance it will be in production for sometime.

[CZ Flyer]

Horizon is no longer a little start up company. They've got bean counters who constantly look at the bottom line. What might be someone's "favorite" planes may not be the favorite planes of enough others whereby they drop their money down and buy one, thus keeping the bean counters happy.
Of the 3 planes first mentioned, I've owned the CZ Cub, got bored with it and sold it. Those who saw my Cub, thought it was a noteworthy plane but not enough actually went and bought one. Also the initial reports of failed ESCs resulting in crashes kept fence sitters away. I still own the CZ T-28 and it gets flown every few weeks, so by no means is it my favorite. Again, those who see it haven't been buying it. There have been 2 Prometheus's at my field and they didn't do anything for me, so never considered buying one. The problem being that there aren't enough people who gravitate towards certain products, no matter how much the few who have them and love them. They won't keep in production what won't keep the sales numbers up and what might be lingering in warehouses and store shelves don't help the matter any either.
The "Too many different planes out there for the demand" statement is so true.

So of the planes in your hangar now, if you had to pick 3 favorites, which would you pick?

[xviper]

So of the planes in your hangar now, if you had to pick 3 favorites, which would you pick?

I'm not sure this has any direct relevance to this thread as any answer would be a very personal one and would not be indicative of how the rest of the RC world thinks and in the context of what's been posted, it's what the general consensus of the RC world and how they spend their money that determines the longevity of a given product.
But just for the heck of it ........................ HobbyKing Arctic Cat because it goes with me almost every other time to fly in formation with other buddies with the same plane. SebArt Mig 29 3D EDF. Eflite Mystique RES. The Cat is dirt cheap (ARF) but it requires a fair amount of building and extras, so it'll likely be discontinued sooner than later. The Mig 29 is expensive and hard to get now so looks like it has been or soon will be discontinued. The RES is my favorite all time sailplane. Don't know how many they sell so can't say when it'll be discontinued. I've gone through well over 100 planes (maybe close to 130) in the past several years, of which 44 still fly today. Many, many of those 100 planes can't be found today and for the most part, that's a good thing, just as a few would be nice if they could be purchased again today. I'm sure a lot of people have a list like this and their 3 "faves" will differ from mine. If you could poll 100 seasoned RC pilots for their 3 favorites, you might (or might not) come up with a couple of planes in common to all. Of those one or 2, it would be interesting to see if they are still popular sellers or if they face extinction. A common "favorite" may not necessarily mean it sells well enough to keep the bean counters happy.

[CZ Flyer]

I'm not sure this has any direct relevance to this thread as any answer would be a very personal one and would not be indicative of how the rest of the RC world thinks and in the context of what's been posted, it's what the general consensus of the RC world and how they spend their money that determines the longevity of a given product.
But just for the heck of it ........................ HobbyKing Arctic Cat because it goes with me almost every other time to fly in formation with other buddies with the same plane. SebArt Mig 29 3D EDF. Eflite Mystique RES. The Cat is dirt cheap (ARF) but it requires a fair amount of building and extras, so it'll likely be discontinued sooner than later. The Mig 29 is expensive and hard to get now so looks like it has been or soon will be discontinued. The RES is my favorite all time sailplane. Don't know how many they sell so can't say when it'll be discontinued. I've gone through well over 100 planes (maybe close to 130) in the past several years, of which 44 still fly today. Many, many of those 100 planes can't be found today and for the most part, that's a good thing, just as a few would be nice if they could be purchased again today. I'm sure a lot of people have a list like this and their 3 "faves" will differ from mine. If you could poll 100 seasoned RC pilots for their 3 favorites, you might (or might not) come up with a couple of planes in common to all. Of those one or 2, it would be interesting to see if they are still popular sellers or if they face extinction. A common "favorite" may not necessarily mean it sells well enough to keep the bean counters happy.

There's an idea for a new thread.

[xviper]

There's an idea for a new thread.

Haha! I'm tracking that thread. The results will be interesting. Wouldn't it be great (and surprising) if one or two planes floated to the top of the pile?

[CZ Flyer]

Haha! I'm tracking that thread. The results will be interesting. Wouldn't it be great (and surprising) if one or two planes floated to the top of the pile?

yes! seeing a lot of variety so far. Thanks for the idea!

[D.Attenberg]

It's all about the "turns." It's not economically feasible to keep these items on the shelves. I can assume that they keep the molds and other items needed for manufacturing. Therefore, if enough people should show interest, they could do a run.

[JFandL]

Two things Horizon will do.
1. If the turns are not there they drop the airframe.
2. If a airframe needs any kind of technical update. They never change anything.( Wings reported to fall off, wood to weak cracks or snaps, canopy flies off , no longer make a servo for the say landing gear.)

[xviper]

Two things Horizon will do.
1. If the turns are not there they drop the airframe.
2. If a airframe needs any kind of technical update. They never change anything.( Wings reported to fall off, wood to weak cracks or snaps, canopy flies off , no longer make a servo for the say landing gear.)

What do you mean by "turns"?
I know of two examples that seems to diverge from this "policy". 1. The Radian XL's first batch had very poorly glued reinforcement channels all over the plane. A TSB came out for owners to add more glue to those areas and all subsequent runs were fixed. 2. The original Mystique RES had very fragile wing roots whereby the CF rod would rip through the wing roots on high G maneuvers. Subsequent runs of this plane had the wing root strengthened.

[rifleman_btx]

It goes back to what I thought all along, they end up pricing themselves to death. Make stuff people like and can afford they don't sit on the shelf. Make a nice plane but over price it, even with how nice it is its gonna sit with low volume sales. Thus it doesn't hang out long. That's where these manufacturers have to decide. Make something large only few can afford, or scale the product and price down to make the sales that otherwise the mass public will overlook for less expensive alternatives.

[JFandL]

What do you mean by "turns"?
I know of two examples that seems to diverge from this "policy". 1. The Radian XL's first batch had very poorly glued reinforcement channels all over the plane. A TSB came out for owners to add more glue to those areas and all subsequent runs were fixed. 2. The original Mystique RES had very fragile wing roots whereby the CF rod would rip through the wing roots on high G maneuvers. Subsequent runs of this plane had the wing root strengthened.

Very rare for them to fix anything. I've had many of their airframes and not once did they try to upgrade. I still have their Blue nose P51 in a box waiting for them to redo the wing retract area( Landing soft wood around the retract area would eject the retracts out the top of the wing even with a soft landing.) , and also what retract servo will fit right in their retract system. How they fixed this aircraft was to drop the sale of it.