Narrative:

While flying to the airport on my last tour today; heavy rain and clouds obstructed my flight path back to the airport. Listening to the current VFR ATIS report from ZZZ (vis 10 miles/ceilings 3500+) and being cleared to tower from approach control; I was sure that I could go south around the weather and approach to the heliport from the clear weather there. Tower advised me that it was clearer towards the area I had just come from. I turned around after traveling south and returned towards the direction I came. I was in rain and tower said conditions were clear at a heading of 040 degrees; a slight left turn required from where I was. It was at this point that the rain increased and the visibility went down to zero. Not wanting to turn because of loss of reference; knowing that where I just had now IFR; I instead leveled my wings and using instruments told tower the rain had increased; shortly after; declaring to ATC that I had lost visibility and needed help to make the shoreline. Tower gave me a heading fly to get me to the shoreline where I would break out of the clouds. I complied with ATC instruction and broke out of the clouds over the shoreline where I followed the shoreline to the airport for landing. The visibility went down very quickly. I was at minimums in the rain. I wasn't expecting the visibility to decrease even more as I had flown in this type of rain my entire career. When it did grow worse; the first thought I had was that I should have just landed on the football field where the visibility was good and wait out the rain. From my position the visibility getting me to the airport or the coastline was too low. I should have spent the time in good visibility to find a safe temporary landing spot; landed and waited for the weather to pass over.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: EC130 pilot reported encountering IMC during a VFR tour flight and received ATC assistance to return to VMC and an airport landing.

Narrative: While flying to the airport on my last tour today; heavy rain and clouds obstructed my flight path back to the airport. Listening to the current VFR ATIS report from ZZZ (vis 10 miles/ceilings 3500+) and being cleared to tower from approach control; I was sure that I could go south around the weather and approach to the heliport from the clear weather there. Tower advised me that it was clearer towards the area I had just come from. I turned around after traveling south and returned towards the direction I came. I was in rain and tower said conditions were clear at a heading of 040 degrees; a slight left turn required from where I was. It was at this point that the rain increased and the visibility went down to zero. Not wanting to turn because of loss of reference; knowing that where I just had now IFR; I instead leveled my wings and using instruments told tower the rain had increased; shortly after; declaring to ATC that I had lost visibility and needed help to make the shoreline. Tower gave me a heading fly to get me to the shoreline where I would break out of the clouds. I complied with ATC instruction and broke out of the clouds over the shoreline where I followed the shoreline to the airport for landing. The visibility went down very quickly. I was at minimums in the rain. I wasn't expecting the visibility to decrease even more as I had flown in this type of rain my entire career. When it did grow worse; the first thought I had was that I should have just landed on the football field where the visibility was good and wait out the rain. From my position the visibility getting me to the airport or the coastline was too low. I should have spent the time in good visibility to find a safe temporary landing spot; landed and waited for the weather to pass over.

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.