

Ultra-light UAVs employed to take aerial photos of the protest rally in Moscow - agrostis
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/updates-on-protests-in-russia/#drone-journalism-comes-to-moscow-protests

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exDM69
The UAVs were used by the press, not police surveillance.

Maybe the US press could do the same, they could cover events like Occupy Wall
Street using remotely controlled quadrocopters since real choppers or
journalists on foot were not allowed in the area.

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jbarham
Probably not a good idea to fly a UAV in lower Manhattan...

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exDM69
What makes lower Manhattan different from downtown Moscow? They're both high
density urban areas with population in the millions.

Moscow is older and the architecture may be a bit more forgiving for flying
UAV's. Also the aerial photography taken in Moscow seems to be around a river
and a park. However, there are plenty of Occupy and other protests plus other
events where aerial photography may be interesting going in lots of different
places, some more UAV friendly than others.

Also remember that modern gyro stabilized, computer controlled quadrocopter
UAVs operate with a centimeter precision indoors, so they ought to be pretty
precise outdoors too.

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ajays
Here's a non-Facebook picture, if you don't want to send them the traffic and
the data: <http://englishrussia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/18.jpg>

~~~
slipstream
Original source even better, also includes 360° fullscreen viewer for all
images: [http://www.airpano.ru/360Degree-VirtualTour-
inactive.php?3D=...](http://www.airpano.ru/360Degree-VirtualTour-
inactive.php?3D=Moscow-Bolotnaya-Square-Rally)

6-rotor helicopter used by Ridus/AirPano team:
<http://www.airpano.ru/files/bolotnaya_1.jpg>

Aerial video: <http://rccam.livejournal.com/50143.html> (jump to 3m00s to see
how the flare rocket fired from the crowd below just barely missed the
helicopter)

\+ flare rocket shot in the general direction of the helicopter, view from the
ground:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIxFjds55U0&t=2m47s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIxFjds55U0&t=2m47s)

\---

Also, regarding the second helicopter. The Ria Novosti video linked in the
article seems was later removed and another one uploaded instead:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dryUQ_192cc> (mirror
<http://ria.ru/tv_society/20111210/512347323.html>)

This new video is slightly longer, but the part about Ria Novosti staff
operating their (quadrotor) helicopter is no longer there.

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jsiarto
Another great resource for this is Chris Anderson's <http://diydrones.com/>

Great resource for UAVs, FPV flying and aerial photography.

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easy_rider
Yeah, just found that one few days back. Me and my friends were discussing all
the useful appliances for RC Drones. (E.g. aerial recon during a zombie
hollocaust) Maybe I'll have some time in the future to start my own project.
Diydrones shows some real supercool stuff that is actually affordable!

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brc
Not related to Moscow protests, but I saw a segment on the news last night
that the local fisheries patrol will be using UAVs to patrol for illegal
fishing. The UAVs will operate 24 hours a day and continually sweep the
restricted zones for fishing operations.

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DenisM
Here's the actual picture. Stunning.

[https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2492349945119&se...](https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2492349945119&set=a.1717545455491.2086705.1143878298&type=1&theater)

~~~
huhtenberg
The fish-eye is nice, and their use of ultra-light UAV is very interesting.
The crowd though is a bit on a thin side :)

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agrostis
Re. the crowd: it might be thin indeed—the most trustworthy estimates for the
attendance were around 50k people—but for Moscow, this is extraordinary, as
almost all protest demonstrations in the last fifteen years or so were of a
narrowly partisan nature and had an attendance of several hundred, rarely two
or three thousand, up to 6k just once.

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joelhaasnoot
This is actually a pretty popular hobby: attaching cameras to a Model RC plane
and take pictures/videos. See forums such as [http://www.rcgroups.com/aerial-
photography-128/?s=1aecd50171...](http://www.rcgroups.com/aerial-
photography-128/?s=1aecd5017167ccf1c0a7ccff126c7d9a&); for some great
examples.

