Pman

Ok Guys, Having spent all evening working on the server it is back up, PLEASE be careful with it :P I can't 100% guarantee that it will be stable right away as I had to do alot of work to get the server back up. I will be monitoring as much as I can over the next few days, but if there is some downtime I apologise in advance, I am doing the best I can with it at the moment :) Pman

Just an update, Plans are afoot to bring the server back early next week Appreciate the patience of everyone, the overwhelming support we have received has spurred Rock and I on to resolve this issue. Keep tuned... Pman

### SERVER STATUS UPDATE ### Hello all, We've received a lot of questions over the last couple of days asking where the server has gone. Unfortunately, as we were at Duxford, we've been unable to respond to all of these messages or do anything to remedy the situation. Now we're back home, we want to address the situation.. A couple of weeks ago, our hosts made us aware that they no longer wanted to support the package that we were using. When our current contract expired (This weekend), they would not be renewing it. They did offer us a choice of their other plans but, due to the requirements of DCS, none were suitable. We're currently looking for an alternative, cost effective, way of hosting the server. Currently, we do not know when/if this will happen. On average, the VA server is using around 40GB of data per day, this rules a lot of packages out there as they're just far too expensive to consider. We're sorry for the inconvenience and we'll be back if we can find a sensible way of hosting our server. The Virtual Aerobatics Team.

I've asked one of our warbird pilots if he has any input, will be interesting to find out Pman

Glad to support the Race! Good luck to all the participants :) Pman

Yeah throughout 1944 P-40F's were being replaced by P-47's on the most part, however 64-66th Aggressor (from memory) were still using P-40f's while the transfer happened throughout the year. I have some records somewhere of ground kills on 109k's and some doras, if they scored kills on the ground then I cant believe they didnt come across them in the air ;) Pman

Thats the thing, P-40F vs 109k and Dora IS a realistic match, it happened alot in the closing stages of the war Pman

The only time we will look at Ai units will be with our maps. You may get the odd ground unit with the modules but it is not planned for any Ai aircraft. Most of our aircraft are British however we have a few that served with other nations including a couple of German ones. As Sith said we focus on aircraft we have access to and have a passion to make. We are not into trying to make balanced scenarios between aircraft. We the most accurate simulations of our chosen aircraft we can, it's up to the mission makers to do the rest :) Pman

One from me from the weekend for you Random

yeah our intention is to try and stream it but from previous experience this isnt always possible, if that is the case we will make a video to share Pman

Can't wait to see people try the efm demo, I've been having massive amounts of fun on it Pman

We will try to stream it but the Internet at Duxford is really quite poor so no promises Pman

+1 Dave is a good friend of mine and one of the experts on our Buchon Pman

We have been doing some work on the server. We don't announce when we will be working on it in advance as it is only a couple of us running this for fun. Pman

Don't think so, I've just checked the logs and it's crashed 4 times in 4 days the rest of the time the server has been up. Pman

I'd suggest you read that reply from Buzzles again ;) Pman

Yeah the f16 isn't really of interest to us. we'll leave that for someone else I think, unless a military contract comes up in the mean time. Pman

Sadly that is completely not true, EA have been trying to argue this for years and there are still lawsuits ongoing : http://www.engadget.com/2013/08/16/ea-settles-battlefield-3-and-textron-helicopter-lawsuit/ Thats not to mention the previous issues with Grumman with other sims. If they own the IP to the systems and design specs then they own the designs. I am not worried about the name or designation that would worry me. Its the designs of the radar, electronics, engines etc etc that bother me. But I digress, I have already covered this topic a number of times all over the forums Pman

At the end of the day for us at least it just comes down to the permission granted. I can't say whether I agree or disagree with the rules those are just the rules. Believe me we have been to hell and back with the rules for the Eurofighter and when people are willing things can be worked out but when the answer is just a flat "No" then that's the end of the discussion, especially with the Military I cant speak for the accuracy of other aircraft from FSX etc only re-iterate that DCS has substantially higher standards then FSX. I'll let you draw your own conclusions. Pman

Allow me to chip in here re VEAO Phantom and A4 Skyhawk McDonnell Douglas offered us really junk terms for the licences for the Skyhawk, to the point that we would have not made any money on the product, obviously as soon as this was realised and the negotiations came to an end we terminated the project and do not foresee it making a comeback. With the F4, during our due diligence it became apparent there are still a large number of embargos on the systems of the F4 were still restricted by the US Department of Defence and I was told directly by them that they will not allow a high fidelity simulator to be produced. As such the F4 project stopped before it got past me. As far as I was told this applies to all variants of the F4 although we were only interested in the Royal Navy FAS variant. We would not have made any other variants . I can’t comment on other 3rd parties but we at VEAO will only undertake projects with the backing of the aircraft manufacturer and if appropriate any national government with security concerns, obviously this doesn’t really apply to a lot of our list being earlier WW2 types and early jets. Anyone who has followed the Typhoon development will know that we have some amazing access to the real deal and we would not endanger this or any of our military contracts by trying to dodge our obligations or skirt around the law. Think of it this way, who would the USA not want to have their hands on a full military grade F4 Simulator that they are not very friendly with at the moment… Pman

love it, great video Pman

Oh in addition, the 2 hour restart is there to stop lag building up in DCS. We found that after 2 hours of running with the number of pilots that we have the server was lagging out and causing problems for people, so it restarts every 2 hours. Hopefully we will lengthen this in the future as/when DCS becomes more stable with all these people! Quite a few times I've found the server 32/32 and I cant even get in my own server! Pman

Hey Guys, Pleased that you like our little project (Vh-Rock and I)! VA has been running for 2 years now and has and will continue to be somewhere that we welcome any pilot of any skill level. When I started VA I didnt have much "time" in those DCS birds and it has been a great journey for me and alot of the other VA regulars to use it to learn alot about those aircraft. Sadly the map is getting crowded! We cant always put aircraft next to everything, only so many spawn points :( The helos I moved out of the way so that they were not being annoyed (or annoying!) planes on the ground. I am glad that someone read my blog as well, I was actually thinking the other day I should do one or two more entries into it as I havent done one for a while. We also have a teamspeak running where you can find other pilots to fly with, as well as a facebook page too : https://www.facebook.com/VirtualAerobaticsdcs See you in the Skies! Pman

Yup that's my thinking Pman

Well just remember I haven't confirmed we are doing one, at this point in time we are not. But when we get another year down the line I will have a serious look into it. That goes for the 110 as well, although I suspect we would only do either the 410 or the 110. If I can get enough data for it the 110 would be my preference. Pman