Narrative:

Tower closed so class D airspace was class G. Self-announced on tower frequency of 120.0. Took off to south for wind and upon reaching 500 ft made climbing right turn northbound on course. During turn; had helicopter pass right off nose of our helicopter. No lights on aircraft. Contacted approach control. They contacted aircraft and said a flight of 2 helicopters doing nvg training. Approach said aircraft had my aircraft in sight the whole time. My response was to lower collective and descend. Military aircraft not use to civilian aircraft over area. Still question the need to fly around lights out; especially if other aircraft had us in sight and did nothing to notify us of their presence. Maybe lights out should be restricted to special use airspace such as restricted areas and moas.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Civilian helo on departure from a helicopter site and a military helo have a NMAC at night.

Narrative: Tower closed so Class D airspace was Class G. Self-announced on Tower frequency of 120.0. Took off to south for wind and upon reaching 500 FT made climbing right turn northbound on course. During turn; had helicopter pass right off nose of our helicopter. No lights on aircraft. Contacted Approach Control. They contacted aircraft and said a flight of 2 helicopters doing NVG training. Approach said aircraft had my aircraft in sight the whole time. My response was to lower collective and descend. Military aircraft not use to civilian aircraft over area. Still question the need to fly around lights out; especially if other aircraft had us in sight and did nothing to notify us of their presence. Maybe lights out should be restricted to Special Use Airspace such as restricted areas and MOAs.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.