[2009-10-08] Virtual Thunderbirds - Live at VFAT 2009

Post by **Lawndart** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 10:15 pm

Virtual Thunderbirds performing Live at VFAT December 4-6, 2009

2009 marks the Virtual Thunderbirds' 5th anniversary, and also our fourth consecutive performance at VFAT. The year started out rough for us, as the team didn't fly a single practice for the first five months after several of our pilots suffered drastic life changes. Additionally, both our former Leader and Slot pilot decided to part ways and leave the team. Since early summer, we've rebuilt the team with a new Boss, Solo pilot, Wingman and Support officer. Additionally, we've incorporated several changes to match the USAF Thunderbirds' 2009 demo. Some of these changes include a new show sequence, a number of new maneuvers and SOP changes that allows us to fly the show faster and more precisely. Just for good measure we also decided to clean up the jets by flying without flaps, making them very slippery and forcing us to re-write all the parameter tables (i.e. KCAS, ALT, Tgt G for entry/apex/exit points), while adding the use of afterburners (in Lock On) for takeoff, and simultaneously making all our crowd passes a lot steeper, the rolls quicker, and the pulls harder for over the top maneuvers.

VFAT is usually the culmination of hard work at the end of show season, however, in some ways this feels like the beginning for us moving into 2010. We're pleased to be back again after what can only be described as one of the toughest years we've had on the squad in so many different ways, and look forward to performing up to our own high expectations as we take to the skies over VFAT in December.

To watch us perform live at VFAT, please visit Virtual Airshows for more information on streaming broadcasts.

Your 2009 Virtual Thunderbirds
1. Lawndart - Commander/Leader
2. Gunner - Left Wing
3. Ray - Right Wing
4. Redeye - Slot
5. Whack - Lead Solo
6. Panther - Opposing Solo
7. Teej - Operations Officer
8. Thumper - Advance Pilot/Narrator

12. Convertible - Public Affairs Officer

Post by **Lawndart** » Sat Dec 05, 2009 1:17 pm

Watch our live demo at VFAT 2009 this Sunday December 6, 2009

Watch LIVE by clicking here! (or visit www.livestream.com/vfat).

Our show is scheduled to begin at: 2245 GMT (1745 EST, 1645 CST, 1545 MST, 1445 PST).

Note: No additional software required, simply point your browser to one of the two URLs above.

We'll see you at the show!

Post by **Lawndart** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 10:33 pm

A taste of the bittersweet...

Everything was on track for our performance up until about 24 hours before the demo when Whack's internet connection started lagging out severely. Texas had a hard freeze, and there could possibly have been some condensation involved (outdoors) between the cable box and his house? After spending more than six hours throughout the afternoon troubleshooting, and having a cable company tech (on call) come out and check splitters, connections, modem, computer and more, we still couldn't figure out what was wrong.

Meanwhile, the team began organizing music & narration as well as get in the mindset of flying a 5-ship show (we practice those too, just in case things like this happen when a pilot cannot make it, but the profiles and maneuvers change a little). About 20 minutes before showtime, Whack pulled a 80-foot CAT 5 (network) cable to his neighbors house and cable modem and against all odds, it worked! While his pit (mancave) was in total disarray and a blue CAT 5 cable was dangling from the second story window across trees and fences to his neighbors house, we setup for our 6-ship show a mere 20-minutes before the scheduled start.

@Whack, "Gaming rig, $1,499... HDTV screen, $599... hijacking someone else's internet connection to fly VFAT, priceless!!!"

Then, once we were ready, my computer had a CTD (crash to desktop) right as we were getting the server started, prompting a restart. Right after the show began, Redeye's computer had a CTD too and he had to reconnect to the server as the show had already begun (with each jet still parked on the ramp). We definitely got a taste of Murphy up until the very last minute when we finally took to the skies over VFAT 2009.

We flew a complete 6-ship show, and it went really well, however...

Livestream crashed about halfway through our show, but I'm happy to say that we flew one of the better shows all year long with great timing, good passes and music & narration. Unfortunately, the live feed took a nose dive after the High Alpha Pass so none of the 5-ship or 6-ship maneuvers made it onto the stream. Our Bomb Burst Cross was probably one of the best we've ever done, and certainly the best for a live performance, but since all those maneuvers occur during the second half of the demo when the stream was down, we were very disappointed to find out that everyone had missed it.

We are pleased with our performance and glad that we continued to press (unbeknownst of the Livestream issue) while flying. Over the course of the coming week we'll asses our options of making a video of our performance as seen at VFAT 2009, and/or flying live again in a few weeks OR shortly after the holidays. Stay tuned for more details!

Look for high res HD screenshots from our (complete) performance at VFAT 2009 sometime after next weekend.

Thanks for your understanding and support!

Respectfully,

SilentEagle · Post by **SilentEagle** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 12:42 am

I was severely disappointed in Livestream this weekend as it has been nothing but flawless for the past several airshows. I was really into the VTB show when it kicked out, just as it had done to the VBA (twice).

CTD's seemed to be very popular occurences at VFAT (having one of those ourselves) even when they are usually rare in practices, almost as if the computer crumbles under the pressure, instead of the pilot!

You guys were looking really good, so I hope to see a video/replay of the performance as soon as you guys can get it out!

Sawamura · Post by **Sawamura** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 5:26 am

Crash to Desktop is unfortunately an issue that can allways happen, without any warning. A good try would be to use one of the little tricks (for example, steer Lock On to only use one core, or to set maxfps=45 in the graphics.cfg) to make Lock On more stable.

The Berkuts team experienced Murphy's Law just 1 minute after the show began. From one of our important pilots provider cut the internet connection for around two hours. We could fly the display later on in a free slot, but even on this display, we were not blessed with luck.

On my solo display, I miss estimated a maneuver that I ended up doing a "dirty touch and go" on the grass. With a quick recovery I could resume the display.

But to not only mention the negative things of this year's VFAT, we had almost no delay and were on time for most demos. Sunday was packed with displays, but at the end the teams did fly on their scheduled time.

I was realy impressed by the very great preparations of the VTB cameraman. Thumbs up to the cameraman and the team. Top work!
Also nice to see that you were perfoming on the same airbase I trained with my golden Mig-29 for my displays.

Robin Hood · Post by **Robin Hood** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 10:13 am

That streaming crash sure was too bad, especially considering Whack's struggling and managing to put "his" connection at work for us, and considering the hard work you Virtual Thunderbirds have went through to be able to fly your display despite a tough time this year!
Really a sad thing that Livestream worked very well for me for most of the week-end (much better than last year's interoute, which was very uneven, with the better part of the shows that I couldn't see - but the VTB did worked perfectly

), but crashed on Saturday and Sunday night (European time).

I, personnally, must admit I was crushed when the streaming crashed, because what I could see of the show reminded me for a fact that, when you come down to it, I'm in love with the Virtual Thunderbirds!

I'm always amazed and thrilled to the highest point just by the show, from the introduction all the way to the taxiing and engine shut down. It's just amazing professionalism.

I hope you can work something out, and I will be sure to stay tuned.

By the way, the Diamond loop on takeoff sure looked challenging, with a few A/Bs running now and then to maintain position! And great camera work too!

Grab · Post by **Grab** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 12:28 pm

In response to my support ticket to livestream;

Hello Kevin,

Thanks for contacting us and we appreciate the feedback as always. Unfortunately, we've experienced an unplanned service outage. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this has caused and are taking the proper precautions to prevent this from occurring in the future. Most of the recent reliability issues will be ironed out within the next 24 hours.

Once again, I apologize if this downtime has adversely affected your broadcast. If you have any additional questions or concerns, feel free to contact me.

Best Regards,

Joe Moore

Joe Moore:
Livestream,
Producer Support
joe.moore@livestream.com
636 Broadway, Floor 3, New York, NY 10012

It really is a shame that this happened. We learned later last night that the problem is most likely related to teams being on different continents. If you recall, all US based teams had problems during peak broadcast hours. The LS server clouds are regional, a European user's content is hosted in Europe, US in US. That being the case, US teams, VTB, VBA, VPJT etc, we're all sending their data across the ocean to Europe as VFAT was hosted and created in Europe, which is the likely cause of the massive failure of the VFAT livestream channel during US performances.

It is really a shame, I saw both VBA performances and they really rocked the demo this year. Up until VTB high alpha the show was looking incredible, the things that you guys can do with the cameras and the mood you can create is really un-matched.

Post by **Lawndart** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 12:47 pm

@Robin Hood, thanks for your kind words!

@zeitzeph, thanks for the update and support. Re: the support ticket, was the response after Saturday's issues or Sunday's issues as well? I thought the same thing about the www.livestream.com/vfat account "residing" on a server in Europe. We should try using the www.livestream.com/virtualairshows account in the future for North American teams!

We will figure out our schedules and options this coming week, but the Virtual Thunderbirds general consensus is that we'd like another attempt at a live show soon again (despite a strong performance during the second half of the show that was lost due to technical breakdowns at VFAT). When we fly next, we'll likely do it on our own Livestream channel (or a US based account).

Thanks again for the info!

Beaker · Post by **Beaker** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 1:55 pm

Lawndart wrote:I thought the same thing about the www.livestream.com/vfat account "residing" on a server in Europe. We should try using the www.livestream.com/virtualairshows account in the future for North American teams!

Absolutely agree... it may cost a few viewers in the transition, but that's a small concern next to dying streams. I'll echo Kevin in saying you guys were really looking great before the stream cut, and everything I was able to see up until the High Alpha clear was really sharp. We'll have another crack at it soon, maybe a bigger US-based airshow?

Grab · Post by **Grab** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 4:07 pm

Lawndart wrote: Re: the support ticket, was the response after Saturday's issues or Sunday's issues as well?

I sent in the ticket Sunday morning after the VBA malfunction. Saturday it seems was more the LS network's fault, perhaps caused by VFAT. Sunday it seems was more due to the geographical separation as after both the VBA VTB demos cleared the auto-pilot went right back to normal.

I agree Beaker, I think we should do a N. America show soon.

Cobra · Post by **Cobra** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 5:58 pm

It was a real shame that the the performances of both the VTB and VBA were so rudely interrupted. Both were on track to be absolute highlights of VFAT.

Robin Hood · Post by **Robin Hood** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 5:55 am

Oh, just in case you VTB decide to go for another live show, I would like to see it at a time/date which would make it possible for Europeans to see; that would be, not in the US evening on a week day (which would be like 4 AM or so in Europe). So if that is possible for you to do it either earlier (but I understand that doesn't necessarily suit you) or/and on a week-end day (Friday, Saturday), I would watch it with delight.

Now, I understand you maybe haven't made up your mind yet, but I'll gladly take whatever comes from you. Thumbs up to the VTB!

(By the way, the reason I'm asking this is because last year I missed the VBA show, which was at 4 AM on a Wednesday).

shylock · Post by **shylock** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 2:22 am

Sorry to hear about this weekend. I was out of town and when I got back Tuesday morning I had checked the on demand to see a cut short demo. From what I seen it looked killer. Again sorry to hear about what happened but I look forward to seeing you guys in the coming weeks. Happy holidays to all.