Popular Nostalgia

Airwolf ran from 1984 through 1987. The supersonic military helicopter with hidden weapons and stealth capabilities flew along the thin line of the Cold War standoff. Its test pilot, Stringfellow Hawke, was played by Jan-Michael Vincent.

When Airwolf is stolen by its twisted creator, Doctor Charles Henry Moffet, “the FIRM” asks Hawke to go to Libya and get it back. After being cut adrift by the FIRM, Hawke and his friend, Dominic Santini (Ernest Borgnine), keep Airwolf for themselves. They hide it in an extinct volcano (the Lair) in the remote “Valley of the Gods” surrounded by booby traps. Hawke uses the helicopter as leverage to get the FIRM to find his brother, St. John, who has been missing in action since Vietnam.

As a compromise, the deputy director, suggests that Santini and Hawke use the helicopter to fly missions of national importance in return for immunity from prosecution for stealing the helicopter. The mysterious organization known as “The FIRM” is a covert branch of the Central Intelligence Agency, whose Deputy Director, Michael Coldsmith-Briggs III (Alex Cord), is code-named Archangel.

The series ran for 55 episodes on CBS in the United States in 1984 through 1986, and an additional 24 episodes, with a new cast and production company, aired on the USA Network in 1987, for a total of 79 episodes. An enhanced version of the first episode was also released as a motion picture in several countries as well as on home video.