COURTESY VOLCANO CIRCLE ISLAND Mokulele Flight Service's three-passenger Cessna 172 services the Volcano Circle Island tours on the Big Island. Charter flights to other islands are offered.

A love of flying
has paid off

If you go ... What: Volcano Circle Isle Tour, with Mokulele flight service Place: Meet at the commuter terminal at Kona International Airport When: Offered daily; times vary Cost: $269 for adults and $177 for children 2 to 18; includes a 10-minute videotape per party. Kamaaina adults pay $199 (no discount for kids). Call: 808-326-7070 on the Big Island or toll-free 866-260-7070 from the other islands Notes: Check in 30 minutes before departure time. Mokulele Flight Service also offers a 50-minute Pele's Delight tour, which departs from Hilo to the Volcano area. Call for details. Charter flights to Kona, Molokai, Lanai, and Kahului and Hana on Maui are also available. E-mail: reservations@mokulele.com Web site: www.mokulele.com

Her dreams began taking flight nearly two decades ago while she was working part time as an agent for Aloha Airlines in Kona. It was 1986, and Inaba, then 21, decided she wanted to pilot airplanes instead of boarding passengers.

Ready and willing to make sacrifices, she switched to a midnight shift with Aloha's freight operation so she could learn to fly during the day. At the time, no one was offering flying lessons on the Big Island, so she worked through the night, then hopped the first Aloha flight to Kahului, Maui, for instruction in working toward her private pilot's license.

In November 1989 she married her longtime sweetheart Don Inaba, and for the next five years, she managed to maintain her demanding work and flight school schedule while adjusting to life as a newlywed. She wanted to follow in the footsteps of her father, Capt. Horace Pope, who had been one of the first local pilots to make the transition from DC-3 propeller planes to DC-9 jets with Hawaiian Airlines in February 1969.

Inaba earned her pilot's license in 1991 and her instrument certificate the following year. She obtained her commercial certificate in 1993 while pregnant with her first child, daughter Kilihea. In 1994, while Inaba was pregnant with her second child, son Holeka, she received her flight instructor certificate.

BY THIS TIME, family had become Inaba's top priority, and she realized she wanted to be her own boss.

She no longer wanted to commute between the islands, which would be the case if she was hired by an interisland carrier.

Thus, in 1995, Mokulele (Airplane) Flight Service was born. To make ends meet, Inaba initially gave flying lessons during the day and worked the midnight shift at Aloha Airlines. Then, in April 1998, with just a three-passenger Cessna 172, she decided to expand Mokulele's offerings to include Volcano Circle Island tours.

Business soared, and today, using two nine-passenger multi-engine Piper Chieftains, one five-passenger multi-engine Beech Baron and one five-passenger single-engine Cessna 206, Mokulele carries some 1,000 passengers monthly and holds the distinction of being Hawaii's largest fixed-wing tour company.

"All passengers are guaranteed a window seat," says Inaba. "Our aircraft provide great views through large windows; the photo opportunities are excellent!" Passengers are equipped with headsets so they can enjoy stereo music and narration by the pilot in flight.

COURTESY VOLCANO CIRCLE ISLAND TOUR At top, taking the bird's-eye view tour offers a new perspective on Hawaii.

Mokulele's two-hour Volcano Circle Isle Tour takes passengers over all of the Big Island's scenic treasures, including Kealakekua Bay, Milolii (Hawaii's last native Hawaiian fishing village), the Kau Desert, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Akaka Falls, the Hamakua Coast and Parker Ranch.

Jules Dudoit, the company's senior pilot, asserts: "I'm going to show you more of the Big Island in two hours than people see in their entire lifetime. Locals are totally blown away by this tour. They've lived on the Big Island all their lives, and they've never seen what was in their back yard."

Dudoit has hiked, biked and ridden on horseback on all the islands, but he says: "When I started to fly, I realized this is the way to see them! From the air, you can see what you can't get to any other way."

ACCORDING TO Dudoit, 90 percent of Mokulele's customers take the Volcano Circle Isle Tour to get a bird's-eye view of the volcano region. Although that's always a highlight, especially when a red-hot river of lava is flowing, Dudoit says: "When I show them the white sandy beaches, the reefs, the turquoise ocean, and Maui and Kahoolawe when we're coming around North Kohala, they think that is way more incredible than the volcano. Now is the perfect time to take the circle-island tour because there's snow on Mauna Kea and it's whale season. We see humpbacks breaching; in fact, on a clear sunny day, we can see them swimming underwater. No kidding!"

Typically, Dudoit says, Waipio and Waimanu valleys along the Hamakua Coast inspire the most oohs and aahs. "There are 800-foot, 1,000-foot, 3,000-foot waterfalls there that you can't see from the road. People always tell me, 'When we drove to Hilo from Kona, we didn't see all those waterfalls.' There are hundreds of waterfalls along the northern coast that you can't see from the road."

COURTESY VOLCANO CIRCLE ISLAND TOUR Kawehi Inaba went from an Aloha Airlines agent to a pilot and entrepreneur.

Dudoit's narration is sprinkled with fascinating myths and legends about the Big Island, many told to him by his grandmother when he was a boy. "That's what sets Mokulele apart from other tour companies that hire pilots from all over the country," he says. "They tell their pilots, 'OK, read this guidebook, learn a few stories and get going.' I was born and raised in Hawaii, and I share stories that I grew up with; they are the real deal."

Occasionally, passengers have their own amazing tales to tell. Dudoit recalls a retired doctor from Virginia Beach who grew up in Laupahoehoe because his father was a sugar plantation foreman.

"He was one of the lucky ones who survived the April 1, 1946, tsunami because his dad was busy and was taking him to school late that morning. As we were flying over Laupahoehoe, he started talking about that day. He remembered a road that went into the valley and came up on the other side. He said, 'When we drove into that valley, the village of Laupahoehoe was there. When we came out around the next point, it was gone.' "

You can weave your own vivid memories from the dozens of spectacular images that a circle-island adventure with Mokulele reveals. Dudoit claims 80 percent of the Big Island can be seen only by air.

"I tell my guests from the mainland, 'When you go home, people are going to ask, Did you see this on the Big Island? Did you see that? Did you go here? Did you go there? And you can honestly answer yes to everything!"