The student and instructor pilots aboard a citabria suffered an near midair collision while in the t...

Attributes
ACN	1032642
Time
Date	201208
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	X49.Airport
State Reference	FL
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Champion Citabria Undifferentiated
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Initial Approach
Route In Use	Visual Approach
Flight Plan	None
Aircraft 2
Make Model Name	Helicopter
Flight Phase	Cruise
Person 1
Function	Instructor Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Flight Engineer Flight Crew Flight Instructor Flight Crew Instrument Flight Crew Multiengine
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 30.6 Flight Crew Total 25000 Flight Crew Type 225
Events
Anomaly	Airspace Violation All Types Conflict NMAC Deviation - Procedural FAR Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Miss Distance	Horizontal 150 Vertical 0

Narrative:

Turning left toward downwind at approximately 1;000 MSL; front seat trainee observed helicopter nearly head-on that had been blocked by lower wing in turn. [I] performed steep right turn to avoid collision. During a total of 5 landings at this airport; we observed helicopter in apparent orbit overlapping the airport's flight pattern while maintaining approximately pattern altitude. The track of the helicopter's orbit placed it potentially head-on to downwind traffic when turning from east to west. We were unable to contact the helicopter on CTAF. We switched to an adjacent airport's tower frequency and inquired if they had contact with him. They did not but the helicopter pilot came on without an identifier and stated that 'you have to maintain clearance from me'; to which I replied 'helicopters are to avoid flow of fixed-wing traffic.' he responded 'I can't help it if I received a call in this area.'I do not believe the helicopters' right of way over fixed wing traffic includes the right to intentionally interfere with an established traffic pattern at an airport. In this case; we cut our intended training short by at least 2 patterns to avoid further conflict.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: The student and instructor pilots aboard a Citabria suffered an NMAC while in the traffic pattern of uncontrolled airport X49 with an orbiting helicopter pilot who elected not to identify and declare his intentions on CTAF. The helo pilot was; however; monitoring the Tower frequency of a nearby LAL airport but was unapolgetic for his behavior and refused to identify his aircraft when he overheard the reporter's inquiry to the Tower.

Narrative: Turning left toward downwind at approximately 1;000 MSL; front seat Trainee observed helicopter nearly head-on that had been blocked by lower wing in turn. [I] performed steep right turn to avoid collision. During a total of 5 landings at this airport; we observed helicopter in apparent orbit overlapping the airport's flight pattern while maintaining approximately pattern altitude. The track of the helicopter's orbit placed it potentially head-on to downwind traffic when turning from east to west. We were unable to contact the helicopter on CTAF. We switched to an adjacent airport's Tower frequency and inquired if they had contact with him. They did not but the helicopter pilot came on without an identifier and stated that 'you have to maintain clearance from me'; to which I replied 'helicopters are to avoid flow of fixed-wing traffic.' He responded 'I can't help it if I received a call in this area.'I do not believe the helicopters' right of way over fixed wing traffic includes the right to intentionally interfere with an established traffic pattern at an airport. In this case; we cut our intended training short by at least 2 patterns to avoid further conflict.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.