Narrative:

My commercial helicopter student and I were starting to practice traffic patterns at ZZZ in a robinson R22. During the first three patterns I had noticed an ultra light taxiing all around the surface of the airport. The pilot did not make any radio calls. As we turned final for one of our right traffic patterns to midfield (the middle X) of the closed runway parallel runway 30 (as is standard for helicopters at this field); I noticed that the ultra light was stationary in the taxiway run-up area on the approach end of the closed runway. I reminded my student not to overfly the aircraft; and he offset his course to the right of the ultra light; away from the taxiway. Our approach was at a normal-shallow helicopter approach angle; putting us over 100 ft AGL as we passed abeam the ultra light. After we reached our landing target; I had the student set down the helicopter. During this time; an airplane announced his arrival into the left traffic pattern for runway 30. He was advised over the CTAF frequency that there was a disabled aircraft right beside runway 30 and that he should exercise caution to avoid the disabled aircraft. When we picked the helicopter up; we performed a pedal turn and saw that the ultra light was sitting lopsided in the grass beside runway 30. This puts the ultra light 200 to 300 ft from where we last observed him; we saw that people were helping the ultra light; so I decided that we could continue our lesson; although I told my student to make his approaches to the far end of the field to minimize our presence. During the next pattern I observed that the ultra light had knocked over the 30-12 runway sign at the first taxiway intersection. It was relayed to me upon my return to our training school at ZZZ1 that the ultra light was blaming us for apparently blowing his aircraft across and off the taxiway; and onto the grass beside the runway. During our entire lesson my student and I followed airport procedures and part 91 regulations; announced our position over the CTAF frequency and avoided other aircraft. From my experience around the small R22 helicopter; even a helicopter pulling full hover power ten feet away causes at most a light breeze. A helicopter using descent power over 100 ft high and not directly overhead would most likely be seen and heard; not felt. The wind was calm.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An R22 helicopter pilot landing at a CTAF airport intentionally side stepped the runway's final approach path because of an ultralight holding short and yet the ultralight pilot claimed it was blown off the runway by the rotor wash.

Narrative: My commercial helicopter student and I were starting to practice traffic patterns at ZZZ in a Robinson R22. During the first three patterns I had noticed an ultra light taxiing all around the surface of the airport. The pilot did not make any radio calls. As we turned final for one of our right traffic patterns to midfield (the middle X) of the closed runway parallel Runway 30 (as is standard for helicopters at this field); I noticed that the ultra light was stationary in the taxiway run-up area on the approach end of the closed runway. I reminded my student not to overfly the aircraft; and he offset his course to the right of the ultra light; away from the taxiway. Our approach was at a normal-shallow helicopter approach angle; putting us over 100 FT AGL as we passed abeam the ultra light. After we reached our landing target; I had the student set down the helicopter. During this time; an airplane announced his arrival into the left traffic pattern for Runway 30. He was advised over the CTAF frequency that there was a disabled aircraft right beside Runway 30 and that he should exercise caution to avoid the disabled aircraft. When we picked the helicopter up; we performed a pedal turn and saw that the ultra light was sitting lopsided in the grass beside Runway 30. This puts the ultra light 200 to 300 FT from where we last observed him; We saw that people were helping the ultra light; so I decided that we could continue our lesson; although I told my student to make his approaches to the far end of the field to minimize our presence. During the next pattern I observed that the ultra light had knocked over the 30-12 runway sign at the first taxiway intersection. It was relayed to me upon my return to our training school at ZZZ1 that the ultra light was blaming us for apparently blowing his aircraft across and off the taxiway; and onto the grass beside the runway. During our entire lesson my student and I followed airport procedures and Part 91 regulations; announced our position over the CTAF frequency and avoided other aircraft. From my experience around the small R22 helicopter; even a helicopter pulling full hover power ten feet away causes at most a light breeze. A helicopter using descent power over 100 FT high and not directly overhead would most likely be seen and heard; not felt. The wind was calm.

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.