Red Helicopter booking out to Puna over Keaau town

[Carey]

and others are in the air...is the fire still going?

[Rob Tucker]

I see some smoke. Less so than a few days ago.

[peteadams]

Usual 0630 helicopter flight. Smoky last night at times in spite of nearly .25" of rain up here.

[pahoated]

They always have a couple morning flyovers, sounds like HVO and CD. It sounds like the HVO helicopter contract is more limited and CD also contracts out. HVO mentions the morning flyovers in their daily update.

It rained pretty hard last night, which usually slows down the combustion in the morning, then it starts picking up during the day as the vegetation dries out.

The flow front has shifted again. If you are looking at the purple arrows, it has turned more right, or more northeast.

"We come in peace!" - First thing said by missionaries and extraterrestrials

[Carey]

This was about an hour earlier than the normal...and 3 birds were up...that is why the questions..and lower & faster than the "usual"
(Not a newbie, right on the flight path, only ask on the not normal flights folks....normal is 6-10 flights an hour out & back every day (1-2 birds at a time...3 not normal) starting after 7:30am-dusk...just at dawn is not normal)

[lavarat]

Sometimes the tour choppers like to scout the area early in the morning. If the demand has picked up, they might be adding more flights. Paradise Helicopters would usually travel in 3's.

[pahoated]

Probably because the flow took a sudden right, from their projection arrow of Sep. 19 (the second blue arrow is around today).
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/maps/uploads/image-124.jpg
It was supposed to do this gradually to go around a mound and if it suddenly changed course, they may need more tweaking in their terrain data. Not really sure why they can't just do lidar 3d scanning at this point, probably don't have the equipment or expertise here.

"We come in peace!" - First thing said by missionaries and extraterrestrials

[avnav]

I got up too late this morning to listen in on the radio and hear these flights you are talking about, darn it. The orange helo you usually see fly in the mornings belongs to the fire department I believe, and that is the one used for the morning Civil Defense overflights. It goes by the call sign "Chopper One." If you buy yourself a radio to listen in you'll hear them.
Once in a while the pilot of Chopper 1 will tell ATC what they've seen but generally all you hear is position reports and other normal radio traffic between them and ATC. They were flying again just a few minutes ago, but didn't say anything worth noting here. The tour helicopters are more likely to talk about what they see than Chopper 1, listen to them on 122.85, the air-to-air frequency for this area.