Narrative:

I work for a company that provides aerial video for a local tv station. The station was sponsoring a balloon festival and requested video of the event. We had been orbiting for about 45 minutes at 2000 MSL when the station advised that they had sufficient video and to return to base.I initiated a left turn from 180 to 010 when my camera man in the rear left seat exclaimed 'did you see that'? I asked what and he replied a little plane just flew under us; I glanced at the tcad readout and saw traffic; .1 miles and -200 ft. I never saw the aircraft but we shot video of it and could see later that it was a C-182. I had unicom frequencies up for two local airstrips which is where I think the C-182 departed from; I had heard no traffic on those frequencies. I don't believe the high wing cessna ever saw us.I usually turn down the audio on the tcad when departing class C as I find it distracting and in this instance I had not returned the tcad volume to cruise setting. Also; I had been focused on spacing from the dozen or so balloons that were popping up everywhere below us and was not scanning for traffic. Next year I will ask the balloon event organizer to include orbiting helicopter in the NOTAM.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A Helicopter TV crew reported a near miss at 2;000 feet as they departed a balloon festival after providing aerial coverage.

Narrative: I work for a company that provides aerial video for a local TV station. The station was sponsoring a balloon festival and requested video of the event. We had been orbiting for about 45 minutes at 2000 MSL when the station advised that they had sufficient video and to return to base.I initiated a left turn from 180 to 010 when my camera man in the rear left seat exclaimed 'did you see that'? I asked what and he replied a little plane just flew under us; I glanced at the TCAD readout and saw traffic; .1 miles and -200 ft. I never saw the aircraft but we shot video of it and could see later that it was a C-182. I had UNICOM frequencies up for two local airstrips which is where I think the C-182 departed from; I had heard no traffic on those frequencies. I don't believe the high wing Cessna ever saw us.I usually turn down the audio on the TCAD when departing Class C as I find it distracting and in this instance I had not returned the TCAD volume to cruise setting. Also; I had been focused on spacing from the dozen or so balloons that were popping up everywhere below us and was not scanning for traffic. Next year I will ask the balloon event organizer to include orbiting helicopter in the NOTAM.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site 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.