Can you ID this 1970s TV kids drama

If you want entertainment, download Airwolf from Flightsim.com and then load it into MS Combat Flight Simulator….your success rate on missions is greatly enhanced!!!!
The 190s get very confused when you hover to strafe the General’s car 😀

I might be able to scan my 8″ X10″ print. Its negative is a forge format.
I’ll see what I can do.

Looking forward to it 🙂

Anybody old enough to remember “Whirlybirds” ?

http://cellmath.med.utoronto.ca/B47/history/wbGuide/wbLaunchIt.html

They mainly flew a Bell 47G

N975B, if I remember correctly?

Thanks for the comprehensive reply – any chance of posting said photos so we can have a look-see? 😉

I might be able to scan my 8″ X10″ print. Its negative is a large format.
I’ll see what I can do.

Blue Thunder was first a feature film. With a big budget they could afford to extensively modify the two Gazelles.

Airwolf was made for TV…you may be thinking of the two hour “pilot” film/TV movie which may have been shown in theaters overseas. And it has been released on DVD.
With a smaller budget (and no guarentee that the TV show would be a success) Universal Studios had to make do with less extensive modifications to the Bell 222A (which is a very expensive ship to begin with).
The flying helicopter was an early A model owned (or at least operated) by Jetcopters out of Van Nuys Airport north of Hollywood. The studio prop department made fiberglass add-ons to make it look the part…and would keep the FAA happy. I was told by a friend, a bBell test pilot, that the interior was a mock-up using an early Bell engineering mock-up with the fancy instruments and panels added.
The belly rocket launcher and machine guns on the fuel sponsons were detachable and could only be added on location for specific scenes (in other words they could not be on the aircraft when it was being ferried to the filming location.) The scenes of them popping out and being extended were done with mineatures.

Most of the flying was done with the real aircraft though RC models were also occasionally used.

I happened to find “Airwolf” at the Van Nuys Bell Helicopter factory service center/distributor in the summer of 1984. Though security was tight, they let me out on the ramp to get photos. I had a couple enlarged and one was in my office for awhile while a poster size version in framed in my garage.

After the series ended, the aircraft was de-modified and was eventually sold in Germany where it was lost in a fatal crash.
The fiberglass parts were kept by Universal and were offered for sale awhile back.
BTW: After the US series ended, a very low budget version, with a new cast, was produced in Canada. The show used stock footoage of the helicopter, to the best of my knowledge, no flying with the real “Airwolf” was done in Canada…even the cockpit/fuelage mock-up was different.

Hope that answers your questions.

Thanks for the comprehensive reply – any chance of posting said photos so we can have a look-see? 😉

Wasn’t Budgie an invention of Sarah, Duchess of York?

Allegedly though some dispute this.

This from Wikipedia here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Ferguson

“In 1987, she was inspired by the helicopter lessons she was taking to create the character of ‘Budgie the Helicopter’. The plot, style and illustration of the first Budgie book was alleged to be remarkably similar to an existing children’s book, Hector the Helicopter by Arthur W. Baldwin. “It is difficult for us to say that anything has been literally copied,” wrote Jane Moore, group legal adviser of Reed International Books in a letter, “but if this was not a major source of inspiration for the Budgie books then it is a remarkable coincidence”1. Reed International did not pursue a claim for copyright infringement, and Sarah has always vigorously denied accusations of plagiarism. “

There’s been films of both the latter two – the TV series were spin-offs, I think.

Blue Thunder was first a feature film. With a big budget they could afford to extensively modify the two Gazelles.

Airwolf was made for TV…you may be thinking of the two hour “pilot” film/TV movie which may have been shown in theaters overseas. And it has been released on DVD.
With a smaller budget (and no guarentee that the TV show would be a success) Universal Studios had to make do with less extensive modifications to the Bell 222A (which is a very expensive ship to begin with).
The flying helicopter was an early A model owned (or at least operated) by Jetcopters out of Van Nuys Airport north of Hollywood. The studio prop department made fiberglass add-ons to make it look the part…and would keep the FAA happy. I was told by a friend, a bBell test pilot, that the interior was a mock-up using an early Bell engineering mock-up with the fancy instruments and panels added.
The belly rocket launcher and machine guns on the fuel sponsons were detachable and could only be added on location for specific scenes (in other words they could not be on the aircraft when it was being ferried to the filming location.) The scenes of them popping out and being extended were done with mineatures.

Most of the flying was done with the real aircraft though RC models were also occasionally used.

I happened to find “Airwolf” at the Van Nuys Bell Helicopter factory service center/distributor in the summer of 1984. Though security was tight, they let me out on the ramp to get photos. I had a couple enlarged and one was in my office for awhile while a poster size version in framed in my garage.

After the series ended, the aircraft was de-modified and was eventually sold in Germany where it was lost in a fatal crash.
The fiberglass parts were kept by Universal and were offered for sale awhile back.
BTW: After the US series ended, a very low budget version, with a new cast, was produced in Canada. The show used stock footoage of the helicopter, to the best of my knowledge, no flying with the real “Airwolf” was done in Canada…even the cockpit/fuelage mock-up was different.

Hope that answers your questions.

But the all-time greatest kids TV sereies with helicopters has to be Whirlybirds.
One hundred eleven episodes where filmed betweem 1956-59 and it told the story of a pair of pilots who operated a charter service with a Bell 47G and J near Los Angeles. Famed film director Robert Altman directed several episodes when he was starting out (I wonder if he thought of that when he had 47s appear in his film M*A*S*H).
The series was shown for years…as a kid I saw it in the US and Japan. As late as 1988, I saw it on BBC as part of a Sunday morning block of Children’s programs. My wife recalls watching it on BBC while she was growing up. That memory, not doubt, helped her encourage me when I started flying a 47! (A wife’s support is helpful when you’re doing something expensive).

Gotta love Blue Thunder! If only it was real!
What happened to the actual flyers? I remember seeing the cockpit section of Blue Thunder at MGM Studios Florida & hearing Airwolf getting sold.

It was based on the book of the same name, and I seem to recall the machine-gun was taken from a Heinkel, and the rear gunner of a Messerschmitt 110 ended up joining the kids and showing them how to use it.

I still have my copy somewhere, rather dogeared though/

It was based on the book of the same name, and I seem to recall the machine-gun was taken from a Heinkel, and the rear gunner of a Messerschmitt 110 ended up joining the kids and showing them how to use it.

This thread got me thinkin about all the shows I watched as a kid one that came back was ‘The Machine Gunners’ from about 1983. Set in WWII about a group of schoolkids finding a downed German aircraft(Me110 or Ju87)and pinching the rear gun out of it.

There’s been films of both the latter two – the TV series were spin-offs, I think.

Anyone remember an Australian TV series from the seventies called Chopper Squad flying around in a Bell 206

Also no-one has mentioned Airwolf – a heavily modified Bell 222 and Blue Thunder – Gazelle I think?

Looked at the IMDB page for it, looks like it’s the same cast as before, with Face being replaced by the guy that played face in the first two episodes of A team (Wouldn’t be the same without Mr T) – although apparently it’s going to be a comedy, just like all old American tv shows turned into modern movies (Starsky and Hutch, Charlies Angels etc)

Really?! I bet it won’t have the original cast though, won’t be the same without em!

It may be a very different movie if they can get George Peppard in it, given that he’s dead…

George Romero as director, anyone?

(Blimey! I am gloomy today – have I missed a tablet?)

Adrian

Wasn’t Budgie an invention of Sarah, Duchess of York?

Yep.

How about Roger Ramjet.

Really?! Wow and I thought my dreams were coming true with an Alan Partridge Movie. I bet it won’t have the original cast though, won’t be the same without em! (And probably some pimped up yellow Hummer replacing the black van)

Well, for all you A-Team fans out there, a film version is on its way…..!

Best A Team moment was when they came across a rusty old Sherman tank on some private island, while they were driving around in a Deuce and a half. From what I remember, they simply put the batteries from the Deuce 1/2 into the Sherman, tinkered it about and off it went! Funnily enough the ammunition and firing systems worked fine as well

‘CRAZY’ fool I think –

actually picked up the two first seasons of the A Team on DVD a few months ago – there are two Beech Porn episodes – one where they ‘crash’ in the mountains of mexico (Murdoch and BA construct a microlight from the wreckage to fly out a wounded redneck) the crash involved taking the wings off the Beech (a D.18S) and placing them on the ground with some twigs…the second involved landing the Beech in Guatamala then taxying it through the rainforest to avoid the bad guys…

DC3 wise there was a spurious dc3 chase where Murdoch and Amy followed a ‘CIA’ DC3 to china (or somewhere) then baled out to rescue the gang – some nice formation work though….but you’dve thought they would have used a Stirling for authenticity…

My fave was McGyver who hid in a Dak wheelwell then took over the plane (‘by climbing through the wing’ tosspot….

TT