Modellers Society of Thailand - More Cool Nerdiness at Zeer Rangsit

Zeer Rangsit is the mall that keeps on giving as far as material for posts is concerned. After the other week's brilliant radio controlled drifting cars, I popped in to kill an hour last Sunday evening while the wife was having dinner with a friend and found the Modellers Society of Thailand having a bash!

As usual, it had been running all weekend and I'd missed a lot of the exhibits and demos. Most of the trade stands were just packing away but there was still plenty to look at. The society seems very biased towards aircraft modelling and I was taken aback by the size of some of these models. I couldn't actually find out whether they were radio controlled or simply static display models but they were mightily impressive, most of the big ones being over two metres long.

There was also a well laid out display of smaller model aircraft as well as cars and just a few war modellers creating scenes from the world wars.

Looking on their facebook page, it seems the there were also boat and tank models but they must have been put away by the time I arrived. For those interested, I will give you FB page link

Despite all this modelling genius, the best thing on display was a trade demonstration by DOF Interact, a local Thai company that make simulators both for driving games and flight simulation software. I was so tempted just to grab the little girl and throw her off so I could have a go myself but managed to contain myself!

CHECK OUT THE FULL PRODUCT RANGE FROM DOF INTERACT HERE

They had three models on display, two set up for driving and the biggest and baddest set-up for Flight Sim 8. THe movement is provided by electrically operated actuators rather than the hydraulics found on commercial sims but still, as I watched it flinging the kid about as she successfully crashed half of the Thai Airlines fleet in quick succession, was incredibly fast to respond and had a huge range of motion. The evil half of me was waiting to see if she threw up all over it!

Obviously, things come at a price but as a special weekend offer, they were selling the simulator complete with the PC, screens and controllers for 600,000 Baht which is about £13000 GBP or $16000 USD which although a lot of money, wasn't unreasonable. Who wouldn't want one of they could afford it? The company is only a few miles from where I live so a little visit might be made in the not too distant future!

Again I was happy that modeller geeks and nerds do exisit in Thailand albeit in a very niche and minority capacity and I need to start following more FB groups so I can find out in advance when these groups are holding events and plan accordingly. I still can't find a railway modellers group sadly but do know of one shop in Thailand that sells Peco trackwork along with the Japanese outline stuff so perhaps I simply need to keep going back to the mall ever Sunday!

The common thread within modelling here is that its very much Japanese influenced as can be seen by the subject of these kits.

This is what 600,000 Thai baht buys you. This is pure mancave porn. Of course, this being Thailand, it just had to have some stupid lighting tricks attached!

Get off it you little bugger, isn't it past your bedtime?

All photos in this post were taken by me and no children were harmed in the making of this post, although it was close! The pictures with the little girl were taken with her dad's permission and as you can see, dont show her face.

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For the best experience view this post on Liketu