Airwolf Premiered On This Day In 1984

“This briefing is from file A56-7W. Classified Top Secret. Subject is Airwolf, a Mach 1+ attack helicopter with the most advanced weapons system in the air today. It’s been hidden somewhere in the Western United States by its test pilot Stringfellow Hawke. Hawke has promised to return Airwolf only if we can find his brother, St. John, an MIA in Vietnam. We suspect that Archangel, deputy director of the agency that built Airwolf, is secretly helping Hawke in return for Hawke flying Airwolf on missions of national concern.”

A 1984-87 action-adventure program about Stringfellow Hawke, a helicopter pilot whose brother is missing in Vietnam. The concept of the show is that Stringfellow Hawke manages to blackmail the Firm (a thinly veiled branch of the CIA) by failing to return a prototype helicopter that he’d retrieved for them after the chopper’s creator, the evil Dr. Moffet, flew it off to Libya.

Unusually cordial about this act, the Firm proceeds to hire Stringfellow Hawke as a mercenary to fight against various threats from communists or criminals. Several times, the Firm would attempt to recover Airwolf, despite the fact that they routinely allowed Stringfellow Hawke into sensitive areas to discuss the helicopter’s placement. The Soviets tried to do the same, although the discussions tended to be far more forceful… read more >