Series synopsis
Airwolf is an American action & adventure sci-fi & fantasy television series that premiered on CBS on January 22, 1984. It ended on August 7, 1987. It was created by Donald P. Bellisario. It stars Jan-Michael Vincent, Ernest Borgnine, Alex Cord and Geraint Wyn Davies.
As part of a deal with an intelligence agency to look for his missing brother, a renegade pilot goes on missions with an advanced battle helicopter.
Premise
As part of a deal with an intelligence agency to look for his missing brother, a renegade pilot goes on missions with an advanced battle helicopter.
Premise: A New Kind of Weapon. A New Kind of Hero.
Cast and characters
Leading cast
- Jan-Michael Vincent as Stringfellow Hawke
- Ernest Borgnine as Dominic Santini
- Alex Cord as Michael Coldsmith-Briggs III
- Geraint Wyn Davies as Mike Rivers
- Michele Scarabelli as Jo Santini
- Anthony Sherwood as Jason Locke
- Deborah Pratt as Marella
- Barry Van Dyke as St. John Hawke
Supporting cast
- Jean Bruce Scott as Caitlin O'Shannessy
Guest cast
- George Touliatos as Phillip Devereau
- August Schellenberg as Gregori Nobokov
- Jason Priestley as Bobby Conrad
- Ernie Prentice as Newman
- David Hemmings as Dr. Charles Henry Moffett
- James Saito as Tim Shimizu
- Jared Martin as James Graydon
- Jonna Lee as Rainy Jennings
- Tia Carrere as Kiki Tinabi
- Don Gordon as Sergeant Colvetti
- Timothy Carey as Paul McClelland, the Cat Man
- Philip Paley as Ernie Wolfe
Episodes
This series spans 4 seasons with 80 episodes.
| Season | Episodes | First aired | Last aired |
|---|---|---|---|
| Season 1 | 12 | January 22, 1984 | April 14, 1984 |
| Season 2 | 22 | September 22, 1984 | April 13, 1985 |
| Season 3 | 22 | September 28, 1985 | March 29, 1986 |
| Season 4 | 24 | January 23, 1987 | August 7, 1987 |
| Episode | Title | Air date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Shadow of the Hawke (1) While demonstrating the capabilities of the new prototype supercopter codenamed 'Airwolf', Dr. Charles Moffet goes rogue, steals the chopper and kills almost all of the observers. At least one man -- Michael Coldsmith Briggs III survives. Briggs, codenamed 'Archangel' is the head of a covert organization called 'The Firm' and Archangel calls upon the one man in the world he knows that can retrieve the copter. The problem is Stringfellow Hawke is not only a loner, but a recluse as well. The amount of money the Firm is willing to pay for Airwolf's recovery is irrelevant. Hawke wants just one thing - the safe return of his brother, Saint John, who was captured during the Vietnam war and is evidently a POW. |
January 22, 1984 |
| 2 |
Shadow of the Hawke (2) Hawke and his pal Santini head to Libya to recover Airwolf from it's diabolical creator, but Dr. Moffet turns up the heat by destroying a U.S. Navy warship. When Hawke's girlfriend Gabrielle goes undercover to discover Moffet's nefarious plans, she is captured and tortured and left to die in the desert. It's up to Hawke to recover the chopper, stop Moffet and save the girl, but will he do it all in time? |
January 22, 1984 |
| 3 |
Daddy's Gone a Hunt'n Hawke and Dom must stop a suspected traitor from turning an advanced military fighter over to the Russians in exchange for his son who was born in Vietnam. Things get complicated, though, when Hawke realizes that he was also involved with the boy's mother during roughly the same era as the child's birth. |
January 28, 1984 |
| Episode | Title | Air date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Sweet Britches After an old Vietnam buddy of Hawke's is shot in the desert when trying to escape a corrupt Sheriff, Hawke gets a call from an inmate who had been in jail with the man to aleart him of the escape, and flies with Dominic in Airwolf to Pope County, Texas, to investigate. There, Hawke meets Highway Patrol Deputy Caitlin O'Shannessy, who had a run in with Sheriff Bogard prior to the killing; but Hawke's appearance on the scene sees him arrested by Bogard and released on a private game reserve, where gun-happy sportsmen pay big money to hunt big game – and Hawke is the latest bait... |
September 22, 1984 |
| 2 |
Firestorm Eddie, a friend of Dominic's, was once a pilot until a air crash in which his passengers were killed, causing him to lose his nerve and turn to drink as a result. Living alone in his trailer in the desert, Eddie's alcohol problem has recently become even worse after supposedly seeing lights in the sky in the middle of the night. Though trying to help his friend, Dominic is as skeptical as everyone else, blaming the sightings on Eddie's drunken state, until one night he sees the lights too... The next morning, Hawke arrives to find that the pair of them have vanished, and in searching for them, stumbles upon a fanatical militarist's organization, who is planning to launch his own nuclear missile against Russia... |
September 29, 1984 |
| 3 |
Moffett's Ghost In the midst of it's key part in delivering and collecting a leading American scientist to top secret sanctions aimed at cooling international tensions with Russians, Airwolf develops a seeming computer virus in it's systems, which periodically takes pilot control and makes it a potential killing machine in the air. The systems have been taken over buy a ""time-bomb"" left by the chopper's evil creator, Dr. Moffett, who has programmed it to begin the deadly behaviour if not given it a recognition code by him at that time. Hawke and Dominic must decide whether to let the Firm scientists try and work on the machine - risking having them snatching it back away from them - or to find another way to try and cure The Lady before completing their part in the sanctions, knowing that if they fail to completely cure it, they jeopardise not only international relations, but potentially hundreds of lives... |
October 6, 1984 |
| Episode | Title | Air date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
The Horn of Plenty Hawke takes a seemingly luxurious Santini Air job, piloting and accompanying a beautiful, high-flying business woman for a few days, but ends up duped into being hypnotised in an elaborate plot by master criminal John Bradford Horn. Horn has desire to take over a small country as his own, and intends to have the hypnotised Hawke deliver Airwolf to him so he can use the chopper's fierce fire-power to succeed in his goal... |
September 28, 1985 |
| 2 |
Airwolf II Hawke is at a friend's prestigious ceremony when Archangel pulls him out and accuses him of being involved in a robbery the previous night in which items that could be used by Airwolf were stolen by thieves in a helicopter matching the Santini Air chopper. But Archangel is suspended by the Firm, who've built a new model of Airwolf – Airwolf II, called 'Redwolf', and piloted by Harlan ""Tex"" Jenkins, who worked on the original Airwolf project and has always insisted that he, not Dr. Moffett, was the true creator. But things backfire for the Firm when Jenkins steals Airwolf II - and before he hands it over to the foreign agents he's in league with, he plans a showdown with his old rival – Stringfellow Hawke; a duel that brings Airwolf vs. Airwolf... |
October 5, 1985 |
| 3 |
And a Child Shall Lead String is aided in the rescue of a kidnapped industrial designer by the man's retarded son. |
October 12, 1985 |
| Episode | Title | Air date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Blackjack Dom is killed in a helicopter accident that also severely injures String. Dom's niece, Jo, inherits and takes charge of Santini Air. The Company sends Locke to regain possession of Airwolf, he recruits Major Mike Rivers ,an Air Force pilot to help him find and fly the craft. Together they rescue St. John from a jungle prison and he and Jo round out the new Airwolf team. |
January 23, 1987 |
| 2 |
Escape After being captured and sentenced to die, Jo's only hope for survival lies with a Soviet defector. |
January 30, 1987 |
| 3 |
A Town for Hire St. John is following Jo in a bi-plane as she tries out a new navigation device in a helicopter over an area of wilderness, when her helicopter is suddenly struck from the ground by a laser-beam that sends her chopper crashing down. St. John's plane is also hit, but he manages to land in the nearby town of Santa Mira before he looses consciousness. Waking up the next day in the local hospital, he is infuriated that nobody seems to believe his story and is out looking for Jo. But when he arrives at the crash-site, there is no sign of the crash ever happened, and as St. John tries to find out what is going on, he finds that the small boom town is held in some kind of grip of fear... |
February 6, 1987 |
Production
Release
| Original network/platform | CBS |
|---|---|
| First aired | January 22, 1984 |
| Last aired | August 7, 1987 |
| Runtime | 48 minutes |
| Status | ended |
| Schedule | Friday |