Robinson R44
Flight Crew Commercial; Flight Crew Flight Instructor; Flight Crew Instrument
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 178; Flight Crew Total 2039; Flight Crew Type 538
Communication Breakdown
Conflict NMAC
Flight Crew Took Evasive Action
Human Factors
I was dropping off a groom and his best man for a wedding at a venue with a tight landing area. It was a short flight; and after communicating with Tower I began my high recon of the landing area. I had done both a satellite imagery review and a site visit prior to the landing; but there was a new obstacle I had not expected to encounter. One of the groom's friends had a drone that he was hovering in the parking lot. Not 100% sure of the type but it was a small four rotor system similar to DJI Phantom with a camera underneath. I had not thought to communicate to the groom ahead of time of the need to keep any small UAS on the ground during the landing. I did say to the groom during the flight; 'He needs to keep the drone on the ground.' As I shifted my focus back down to the ground I saw the UAS was in his hand and it looked like he was walking it back to his trunk. At the same time the groom was on the phone and I heard him say 'the pilot said to keep it on the ground.' I decided at that time to continue the approach; and conducted a steep approach into the landing area to remain clear of the trees and obstacles in the area. After landing; I rolled down the throttle to bring rotor RPM to idle and had the groom and his best man exit out of the helicopter walking forward of the helicopter. When I shifted my attention back forward I saw the drone back in the air; about 10 feet in front of me at or slightly above my rotor system. I leaned my head out of the aircraft and made eye contact with the operator while pointing at him; then the drone. I made a hand signal to back away from the aircraft; and the drone moved away from the helicopter and back down to a one foot hover before setting back down on the ground. At that point I contacted tower for takeoff clearance; brought my RPM back up to flight and exited the landing area using a max performance takeoff.It is possible communication with the groom prior to the event to keep any aerial videographers on the ground during the landing and takeoff would have prevented the occurrence; but it is possible the drone operator never communicated his intent to film the landing to the groom. What would have been far more effective would have been to have ground personnel there for the landing to directly communicate with the operator and stress the importance of keeping the drone on the ground to prevent either a mid-air collision or the drone being thrown by the rotor wash into people or objects. However; we had limited staffing due to the holiday weekend and all available company personnel were tasked. I have no way of determining if the operator was licensed; I consider it a high probability the individual was a friend who flew for hobby. A factor in my assessment of this probability is the hope that a licensed UAS operator would know better than flying a UAS two miles from a class B Airport off the departure end of the runway.
A R44 Pilot reported an encounter with a UAV just before liftoff.