Draganfly Innovations just released a new video video today that demonstrates what their wireless video & telemetry base station can do when used with their Draganflyer RC Helicopters. This base station is built into a military grade case and features a quad diversity antenna system that provides the best reception. The Dragan Eye Pro 5.8 GHz Quad diversity receiver built into this base station auto-selects the best signal by using a combination of video signal quality analysis and received signal strength.

When this base station is combined with a lap top the Draganfly Wireless Video & Telemetry Base Station you can view video and telemetry from the helicopter in real time. Dragan View software ships with the base station and provides a lot of added features.

When you are using one of the Draganflyer Helicopters to take pictures, the GPS information is recorded. You can then use the Dragan View software to show you a 3D representation of your flight path on Google Earth™, showing you where you took the individual pictures. With in Google Earth™ you can click on the thumbnail of the picture to bring up a full size version. Along the top of the full size version the longitude, latitude, and altitude information is displayed.

The wireless video & telemetry base station also provides you with an analog video out. This means you can connect it to an external monitor so others can see what the helicopter sees in real time. With the video also being sent to the lap top you can use an application like Snap Security to stream your video to your iPhone. Draganfly Innovations wireless video & telemetry base station is truly a neat piece of gear to have.

Draganfly Innovations assisted the Saskatoon Police Service with collecting evidence at the scene of a traffic accident on December 7 2009. Despite the cold temperature of -28°C / -18 ° F, -36° C / -33° F with wind chill.

Using the Draganflyer X6 UAV RC Helicopter to take aerial pictures of the scene provides the police with clear evidence to use in their investigation. Because the Draganflyer X6 can be rapidly deployed the police are able to minimize the amount of time the road way had to be closed from traffic. It is far quicker and easier for the police to use the Draganflyer X6 than to use a conventional aircraft or boom truck.

This is not the first time the Draganflyer X6 UAV RC Helicopter has been used by the Saskatoon Police Service. On May 28 2009 the Draganflyer X6 saw its first operation use in traffic collision photography.

Both the Ontario Provincial Police and the Saskatoon Police Service have been approved by Transport Canada to use the Draganflyer X6 in their daily operations. Recently the Draganflyer X6 and the Ontario Provincial Police were featured in Blueline magazine. Blueline magazine is the premiere Canadian Law Enforcement magazine.

The Draganflyer X6 has also received approval by the United States Federal Aviation Authority in the form of a certificate of authority (COA) to be operated by the Mesa County Sheriff for use in their policing operations.

UAV RC Helicopters are becoming extremely useful tools for police agencies. They have the benefits of reducing the cost of obtaining aerial photographs in evidence gathering as well as being very quick to deploy. By being able to be deployed quickly they help the police gather evidence faster and in the case of traffic accidents allow the police to get traffic moving again sooner.

Wireless video cameras mounted on rc helicopters can provide some amazing video footage. But what if you need a still image?

Still cameras will yield the highest resolution images, but if you already have a video camera here is what you can do:

1. capture the video in a digital format
2. open up the video in an editor
3. move the slider so you are displaying the frame you want
4. copy the frame
5. paste into a photo editing program
6. save the image in the format of you choice

An example of an RC helicopter using aerial video camera is the Draganflyer SAVS.