Tony (left) and Mike Farnan.

The RC buggy powered by a Zenoah G230RC .

Nitro powered bigfoot truck.

Model Engines
Simon Lockington

On the final day of our Australian trip we took up an invitation extended to us by Mike Farnan and Neil Addicott of Model Engines Pty to come and visit their operation.
Model Engines is one of the biggest, if not the biggest model/hobby distributor in Australia. They are agents for Hitec, OS Engines and JR Helicopters among other things.
Mike Farnan is the Managing Director at Model Engines having taken over from his father Tony who started the business in 1953. Mike has been Australian National Buggy champion as well as multi time Australian Helicopter Champion featuring in many Australian teams at the World Champs.
One event that provided some publicity for Mike and Model Engines was their World Record attempt to fly an R/C helicopter over 300km over water.

Model Engines has a staff of 22 mostly experienced modelers handling the day to day business.

Lately, one of the most popular products in the Model Engines range has been their homegrown 1/10 and 1/18 scale radio control replicas of the Holden Special Vehicles and Ford Motor Racing cars doing the full size competition circuit in Australia. These cars have small glow motors in them and are selling like hot cakes. Infact as we were arriving, another truckload of cars was being unloaded into the warehouse.
Ross, one of the guys from Model Engines had a gas powered offroad truck at 3D Downunder which I took an immediate shine to, so it was no surprise that they unveiled their latest new toy, a Zenoah 23cc powered petrol buggy that screamed 'seriousness' as soon as it came out of the box. I could feel myself weakening. Sharon had been harping on at me for ages about a radio control car or something that she and her daughter Cassie could play with from time to time. However I'm not sure one powered by a chainsaw was what she had in mind…

Mike then lead us through all their OS Engine products, everything from radial engines through to supercharged four strokes, they had it, then we were shown all through the rest of the gear, spares, accessories before getting to the JR Helicopter section where sitting pride of place was a new-in-box Sylphide. I've never seen a Sylphide in real life before so was keen to open up the box and see what was going on inside. JR have packaged up all the sexy bits in a nice segmented cardboard box with clear windows so you can see in and drool over the machined parts, but you can't touch. Very nice.

On towards the showroom where Model Engines has most models that they sell on display. Everything from cars, trucks through to tanks and cranes as well as ofcourse helicopters, planes, gliders etc. The Vigor that did the World Record run over water was on the shelf, the last time it flew being in the World Record attempt. Find out more about this flight here.

Out on the packing floor guys were busy packing up orders to be sent out to various model shops all over Australia and in some cases further afield than that. We took the opportunity to post back my engines as well as some of Sharon's Christmas shopping which the guys handled for us.

Having done the tour and posted our stuff we thanked everyone and left, but not before ordering a couple of those chainsaw buggies through the New Zealand distributor, cause Darryll said if I had one, he had to have one too.

Stock of cars in the warehouse	Assorted planks in the showroom
Order packing area	The world record holding Vigor, set the record for flying 300km over water.
Some stock of OS Engines	The packaging of a JR Sylphide