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Abstract The analysis of helicopter-borne electromagnetic (EM) survey data commonly assumes that the EM sensor (bird) has flown straight and levelly, whereupon the coils are either horizontal or vertical. The EM data typically are transformed, under this assumption, to yield the electrical properties (conductivity, permeability, permittivity) of a homogeneous earth, or they are inverted to a horizontally layered earth. In actual fact, the bird exhibits some roll, pitch, and yaw rotation, which will generate changes to the data that we call bird attitude effect. On the basis of a superposed dipole model, we distinguish the geometric part of the bird attitude effect from the inductive part. Theoretical investigation shows that the geometric effect results from the reorientation of the bird's coil axes related to the earth. It is independent of the system frequency and the electrical properties of the earth but dependent only on the bird's attitude. In contrast, the inductive effect results from the coupling change between the coils and the conductive earth. It depends not only on the attitude of the bird but also on the system frequency and the earth's electrical properties. We calculate ratios of the EM responses when the bird is rotated to those when the bird flies straight and levelly. These ratios, reflecting the purely geometric effect of the bird's rotation, are simple trigonometric functions of the rotation angles and thus can be easily incorporated into our processing of the EM data. We show that, in the general case of helicopter EM systems, the majority (> 95%) of the attitude error results from the geometric effect rather than from the inductive effect. Sufficient accuracy is obtained by using the simple geometric technique for attitude correction, without requiring information about the earth's electrical properties. We demonstrate the usefulness of the method, using an example from a test survey.