Narrative:

While filming a car on a snow track the [helicopter] blade hit the top of a road sign. The road sign was at the end of an oval curve on the right side; the helicopter was turning to the right next to the car. The car we were filming got closer to the helicopter so to keep the separation from the car I turned more to the right causing the blade to touch the road sign as the blade were on an angle.after touching the road sign I immediately assessed the situation; the helicopter was flying properly; but I felt a small vibration; so I decided to land immediately. We checked the 3 blades and 2 were damaged on the leading edge. The third one seems to be okay; but we are sending the 3 blade to the manufacturer for repair and check.the light conditions were poor due to cloud coverage and no sun; we were 15 minutes from sunset which contributed to the incident as I didn't even see the road sign on the right side of the aircraft. The zoom on the camera was not working as it was frozen so I had to be close to the car. I told the director 10 minutes preceding the blade strike that I couldn't see much as they were no contrast and no definition on the ground and was asking when we will stop. He wanted 5 more minutes so I said yes.clearly I should have call off the flying operations when the light started to diminish and I was losing the definition on the snow. Even with a faulty zoom on the camera system I should have been further away from the car and not trying to compensate with my flying. I know better after all those years. In the future I will listen more to my gut feeling and call it off as soon as my comfort level is in question.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Helicopter pilot reported he clipped the top of a road sign with his rotor blades.

Narrative: While filming a car on a snow track the [helicopter] blade hit the top of a road sign. The road sign was at the end of an oval curve on the right side; the helicopter was turning to the right next to the car. The car we were filming got closer to the helicopter so to keep the separation from the car I turned more to the right causing the blade to touch the road sign as the blade were on an angle.After touching the road sign I immediately assessed the situation; the helicopter was flying properly; but I felt a small vibration; so I decided to land immediately. We checked the 3 blades and 2 were damaged on the leading edge. The third one seems to be okay; but we are sending the 3 blade to the manufacturer for repair and check.The light conditions were poor due to cloud coverage and no sun; we were 15 minutes from sunset which contributed to the incident as I didn't even see the road sign on the right side of the aircraft. The zoom on the camera was not working as it was frozen so I had to be close to the car. I told the director 10 minutes preceding the blade strike that I couldn't see much as they were no contrast and no definition on the ground and was asking when we will stop. He wanted 5 more minutes so I said yes.Clearly I should have call off the flying operations when the light started to diminish and I was losing the definition on the snow. Even with a faulty zoom on the camera system I should have been further away from the car and not trying to compensate with my flying. I know better after all those years. In the future I will listen more to my gut feeling and call it off as soon as my comfort level is in question.

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.