Santini Air

8.1.2kXI

Disclaimer: I'm inclined to NOT believe anything I read on the internets. I'm making some exceptions for this story.

I'm shit-crazy nuts about helicopters. Not just because my aunt flies one and not because they buzz my home day-in and day-out. Also because they're frikkin' beautiful and damn cool.

My love affair has gone on for some time. I know this because I used to LOVE the television show "Airwolf." It was a show about a helicopter with guns and shit and Jan-Michael Vincent stole it, hid it and flew around blowing shit up with it. It ruled my world back in '84 - '86, then it got stupid.

I hadn't thought of Airwolf for many years. Then I saw a Bell 222 fly over my home. As it is the same kind of helicopter that the Airwolf helicopter was, I remembered the show. And since I live in a world where damn-near every show is now streaming on NetFlix, I looked it up and - voila - there it is.

I was a young pup back in '84 - '86, so I didn't know '80s crap when I saw it, but I know it now and boy, is Airwolf crappy. Sure, the chopper is cool, but the story is dumb, the acting is bad and the music is awful. I got bored, so I looked up the show on wikipedia. There I learned a terrible fact: After the show was canceled, the Airwolf helicopter was sold and became an air-ambulance in Germany - where it crashed in a storm and killed all aboard! Shit!

I read that and sat stunned and sad. The show was still on and it proved a nice distraction. The story got stupider and stupider. I got bored. On the show, a plot point had the main character serving as the stunt pilot for a movie. He was stunt-piloting a Hughes 500 helicopter aircraft number N58428. I googled that number and - hot damn! - it was a helicopter that would one day become (one of) T.C.'s choppers in the still-great 80s show Magnum P.I.!! I forgot all about being sad. This was geeky fun at it's finest.

I told you I was bored.

Tonight - TNSC "Ground Zero": The Orbit Room.

C'mon by for a warming cocktail on this potentially chilly SF Summer evening.


bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!