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 Tests of the aerostatic complex designed at request from the Moscow Government are being completed. The complex includes 2 two-seat Au-12 M airships and three Au-27 tethered balloons ("Lynx").
The purpose of the aerostatic complex is to improve efficiency of traffic control on urban arteries of the capital. The airships and balloons will monitor road traffic. The complex will be equipped with special optical systems analogous to those which are used in reconnaissance helicopters.
The air and ground forces will be co-ordinated from the single ground centre. The airships operator is the aviation regiment of the Ministry of Interior. They will hover above the most difficult road sections in places of regular traffic jams and transfer online information via video cameras to the single control centre. The centre will analyse the received data and, if necessary, direct officers of the traffic police to solve the problem on the spot. Similar systems have long been used in different countries of the world.
The completive test flights were attended by the customers representative, colonel Yuri Magdalev, chief of the flight methodical department of the aviation centre of the Russian Ministry of Interior, who, together with the Augurs pilot Leonid Putintsev made a flight and admitted excellent characteristics of the airship. The aerostatic complex will become a part of the Moscow program designed to increase traffic safety and a testing ground for the main methods of employment of aerostatic systems in the city infrastructure.
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