| Virtual Collective of Aerial Performers | |
|---|---|
 | |
|
Group Type |
Airshow Promotion |
|
Active |
July 2021 - Present |
|
Key Personnel |
HawkbitAlpha, Gordo, Tex, KyleJusChillin |
The Virtual Collective of Aerial Performers (VCAP) is a YSFlight airshow promotion and aerobatic squadron founded in July 2021 by HawkbitAlpha and Gordo. Since 2022, VCAP has been the primary aerobatics organization of the YSFlight Headquarters community, and is a central hub for live in-game entertainment, with increasing connections to those of other platforms. Along with its own in-house creations, VCAP sponsors a variety of acts in the YSFlight aerobatics community, previously including those of the organization's original parent, the 2nd United Combat Wing.
History[]
VCAP was founded in July 2021 as the YS Military Airshows Association (YSMAA), a project by HawkbitAlpha and Gordo meant to serve as the official squadron aerobatics branch of the 2nd United Combat Wing. In this capacity, the organization's original mission was to not only sponsor 2UCW's displays at other airshows, but to host its own events with a focus on displays of both YSFlight squadrons and real-world air forces.
This would not last long, however, as YSMAA began to shift its focus to general aerobatics after suspending the military-only rule for its second event, the 2022 Gatwick Takeover. At the same time, the group's contemporaries, the YS Airshow Council (YSAC) and YS Aerobatics Association (YSAA), declined sharply in activity, leaving YSMAA as the leading aerobatics organization of YSFHQ. Due to both of these factors, the decision was made in April 2022 to formally rebrand the group as VCAP Aerobatics (later shortened in August 2024 to simply VCAP), becoming officially independent of 2UCW in the process.
YSMAA logo (2021-2022)
In its early months, Hawkbit opted to manage only the behind-the-scenes parts of VCAP's events, and would only provide his own voiceover commentary through pre-made audio recordings. In his place, YSAA owner Alpha Star acted as the live host and narrator for VCAP's first two full-scale airshows, YS Royal International Air Tattoo 2021 and El Centro 1992 (2022). This would change with the YS Jones Beach Airshow in June 2022, in which Hawkbit also took on the role of live host, an arrangement that continues to this day.
Original VCAP logo (2022-2023)
In January 2023, both VCAP and YSAA moved the hosting of all events to the YSFHQ Discord, and the former would host the 2023 YS Sacheon Air Fest on the server. However, VCAP would later return all operations to its own server in September of the same year.
In October 2023, it was announced that VCAP would be entering a hiatus, with Hawkbit, Gordo, and Mustang setting goals to improve their collective skills for hosting future YS airshows. The hiatus ended in July 2024 with YS Wings Over Yellowstone, VCAP's first event of the 2024 season.
Beginning in March 2025, VCAP was the first organization in YSFlight to promote the adoption of the alpha version of YSFlight Community Edition, with Hawkbit having pushed for its public release at the end of the same month.
Style and culture[]
Compared to many other promotional organizations in the world of virtual airshows, even including its YSFHQ contemporaries, VCAP is an intentional outlier. Hawkbit, an avid fan of the work of past hosts Scarecrow and VNAF One, has continually striven to preserve the unique culture and creative stylings of the YSFlight community. This has not only entailed the group's reintroduction of elements from classic YS airshows, such as mass flights and pre-shows, but also placing a heavy emphasis on original, deliberately unrealistic, and sometimes humorous performing acts. This is perhaps best represented by the subject of VCAP's logo: the 2nd United Combat Wing's now-retired Whizzing Arrow III, a semi-fictional F-20 Tigershark which flew a dangerous, low-to-the-ground routine inspired by various European fighter demo teams.
Today, VCAP's small player base consists of a mix of virtual pilots from YSFlight Headquarters and other platforms, most notably Pilot Training Flight Simulator, a Roblox game which was the subject of VCAP's first multi-platform expansion attempt in early 2024. Stylistically, its official members fly both recreations of real-world demo teams and "uniquely YSFlight" original acts, with the collective of Team Skytanix (Hawkbit, Ripley, Omni, and Ray) creating many of the latter. Most of VCAP's official members are also multi-platform flight sim pilots, participating in other communities such as DCS World, Virtual Roblox, Microsoft Flight Simulator, VRChat, and VTOL VR.
VCAP is also noteworthy outside of YSFlight for being the first virtual airshows organization to make use of dedicated bot accounts for streaming high-quality show audio to Discord, with its original bot Vinyl Scratch being launched in May 2021. Hawkbit, who first codified the system for use in the 2021 YSAC Indy Air Fest, has since spread the production technique throughout the virtual airshows community, with his tutorial video on the subject helping it achieve widespread adoption.
Personnel[]
Staff[]
- HawkbitAlpha ("Wedge")
- Gordo
- Tex
- KyleJusChillin ("Duke")
Pilots[]
- MD5Ray01 ("Ray")
- Ripley (FKA Swift)
- ZeroSparkThirty ("Omni")
- SwiftEren ("Swoop")
- Bubba Boomer ("Bubba")
- Shoogie
- Raycuban82 ("Cuban")
- MicrowaveCaprisun ("Beaver")
See also[]
- 2nd United Combat Wing - former official partner