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A GUIDE TO HELICOPTERS IN CINEMA & TELEVISION |
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Fair Game (1995) - Cindy Crawford is the target of hitmen dropped by chopper onto a moving train in this ludicrously hectic action thriller (co-starring William Baldwin). The Fallen Ones (2005) - oddball adventure into fantasy-horror with a giant 40-foot mummified titan unearthed by US contractors and investigated by archaeologists. Egyptian cultists wake the monstrous mummy, and it stomps around in the dark of a lunar eclipse. When an airborne marksman (in a Eurocopter 350) shoots at the mummy, the giant snatches the helicopter in midair, mangles the chopper into scrap metal and then flings it behind a hillside, where a fiery glow from off-screen indicates the aircraft has just exploded. Family Plot (1976) - "at the beginning of this last ever Hitchcock thriller, a late-model police helicopter (a Bell 47G) ferries Karen Black around town." - NATHAN DECKER Fandango (1985) - "an early Kevin Costner movie, set in the Vietnam era, about some Texas college boys on their last fling before they become adults. At the end of the film, hippie pilot Truman Sparks (Marvin J. McIntyre), flies a Cessna plane after one character's girlfriend in Dallas, and is chased by a Hughes 500 police chopper that forces the plane to land." - STEVE COVINGTON
Father Hood (1993) - "I saw this Patrick Swayze film (not his best!), a comedy drama that's really brightened up by a helicopter scene toward the end, involving a Bell LongRanger chasing a speedboat probably doing 25 knots, or so. The LongRanger is flying sideways with the aft door off and a couple of cops with guns are hanging out of it. As a helicopter pilot (from Kent, where I'm currently flying the Bell 206 series), I was drawn to this because I admired the control of the helicopter flying sideways at that speed with doors off!" - TONY LOWRY Fathom (1967) - in this campy spy caper, the roguish hero (Tony Franciosa) and his sidekick use a little Hughes 300 to overfly the scene of a speedboat 'duel' on the Spanish coast. Later, the helicopter lands on a hillside and Franciosa uses a powerful searchlight to blind the driver of heroine Raquel Welch's jeep, forcing the vehicle to swerve off the road. Figures In A Landscape 
(1971) - in Joseph Losey's atmospheric thriller, Robert Shaw and Malcolm McDowell are
pursued by a black helicopter (an Aerospatiale SA315 Lama), relentlessly, across a barren
landscape. There's some fine aerial stunt work in this mysterious drama.The Final Countdown (1980) - Don Taylor's botched time-travel adventure sees a nuclear aircraft carrier (from present day Pearl Harbour) transported back to 6th December 1941, where a US senator is rescued from his damaged yacht (after being attacked by Japanese warplanes) by a Sea King helicopter.
The Final Programme (1973) - the new messiah arrives via helicopter in Robert Fuest's campy sci-fi satire, based upon Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius stories. Final Run (1999) - "in this TV movie about a runaway train, there's a Eurocopter AS 355 Squirrel following the train's progress, and a Sikorsky CH54 Tarhe sky crane (the pilot is played by Drew Taylor) used to slow the separated coaches on the end of a rope!" - DEREK BLAKE
Firestorm (1997) - in Dean Semler's action thriller, heroic fire-fighters (Scott Glenn, Howie Long) called 'smoke-jumpers' parachute out of a helicopter to tackle a forest blaze. Firetrap (2000) - when a hi-tech robbery goes awry and starts a blaze in an office towerblock, a helicopter is used to airlift the corporate execs to safety from the bulding's rooftop. First Blood (1982) - Stallone's disgruntled Vietnam war veteran, Rambo, is cornered by a sheriff's Bell 206 JetRanger helicopter on the side of a cliff during one of this film's many chase sequences. First Kid (1996) - "this Disney comedy, starring Sinbad, features a Sikorsky S-62A Seaguard transport helicopter posing as the Presidential transport." - NATHAN DECKER Jackie Chan's First Strike (1996) - directed by Stanley Tong, this fast-paced comedy-thriller finds Asian superstar Chan on good form throughout the production's international scope, as a Hong Kong cop saving the world from nuclear terrorism. In the Ukraine sequence, two Bell 206 JetRanger helicopters (with Russian markings) bring local police to a mountainside lodge in search of bad guys. The villains use a Hughes 500 gunship to blow up one of the Bell choppers in midair, and hitmen skiers drop from other 500s to chase our hero (Chan), who flees on a snowboard. Chan has to jump off a cliff and grab onto the skids of the second JetRanger, and he only just escapes to safety before it also gets destroyed by rocket-fire from the enemy's Hughes. Later, our hero takes a trip out to sea in a Mil Mi-14 Haze ASW to board a submarine on the way to Australia. In the final scene, more Bell 206s circle around the submarine for Chan's return journey home. Fit To Kill (1993) - this Andy Sidaris film has lethal remote-control model helicopters, credited to Mark Ewart and David Zimmerman, alongside all the usual girls-with-guns mayhem. In the first aerial sequence, the heroes use one mini-copter during hi-tech war games. Next, the villains deploy their own lite chopper, armed with rockets, to kill a lone biker, and then for transporting a stolen diamond to a yacht. The film's big climax has a nifty dogfight between these RC gunships, ending with one getting blown up in midair, quickly followed by the duel-winner's air strike to destroy the bad guy's yacht.
Flight Of The Intruder (1991) - this war movie by John Milius, about American bomber pilots in Vietnam, was filmed with much US military participation. It features Sikorsky H-3 and SH-2 helicopters in several scenes.
The Flood: Who Will Save Our Children? (1987) - filmed in Australia, this disaster movie is based on the true story of tragedy at a kids' summer camp in Texas. It features both rescue and TV-news choppers in action. The Flying Gardener (2001-3) - this BBC series presented by Chris Beardsaw goes soaring above the natural landscapes of Britain using an Agusta 109-II helicopter. Flying Virus (2001) - this derivative nonsense about mutant killer bees, international terrorism and an endangered plane, features a likeable bad guy (Rutger Hauer) leading his gang of mercenaries with helicopter gunships to shoot up a Brazilian village - where the natives are rebelling against exploitation by a secret US government project's use of the region for testing bio-weapons. The Fly II (1989) - in the first scene of this horror movie sequel, a buzzing sound like a fly segues into the clatter of rotor blades as a helicopter arrives at the mad scientist's laboratory complex. The Forbin Project (aka: Colossus: The Forbin Project, 1970) - "in this sci-fi adventure, a USAF Bell 47G is vaporised by a nuclear blast. Earlier in the film, there are quick shots of a Hughes 269A, and an Aerospatiale Alouette, as scientists fight to overcome the tryanny of Colossus, the world-dominating computer they have created." - NATHAN DECKER
The Fourth War (1990) - John Frankenheimer's "Cold War" drama pits American and Russian colonels (Roy Scheider and Jurgen Prochnow) against each other in a personal feud with dire political consequences. In an early scene, a Soviet chopper hovers symbolically over the body of a slain defector. "This chopper is actually a Westland Wessex with mock gunship paraphernalia and a snazzy Soviet paintjob. Impressive though!" - BERND BIEGE Freefall (1993) - John Irvin's spy thriller features a Red Cross helicopter flying just above the ground during the shootout on a cricket pitch. Later, a police chopper rescues the heroine from a mountain chalet.
Full Eclipse (1994) - after the unconvincing stunt of three dead thugs being dropped from a helicopter through the skylight of a mobster's house, a group of vigilante cops steal a police chopper from the L.A.P.D. heli-pad for their mission at the docks. Full Metal Jacket (1987) - Stanley Kubrick's drama about US Marine recruits in Vietnam has civilians being machine-gunned at random from a helicopter in flight. Sound effects of air support can often be heard in the war zone scenes, though helicopters are not seen very often - perhaps because the film's director always refused to fly, even or location shooting overseas. "The big helicopters dropping GIs in Vietnam are actually British Westland Wessex troop carriers. The movie was filmed in England and they used the Wessex because it is very similar to the American H-34 that was used in Vietnam during the time-frame of the movie." - NATHAN DECKER Fun With Dick And Jane (2005) - a bland remake (with Jim Carrey and Téa Leoni) of George Segal and Jane Fonda's 1977 caper, this comedy adventure sees a corporate CEO (Alec Baldwin) quitting before the company goes bankrupt, and leaving his office tower block's rooftop helipad in a Eurocopter AS350-B2 Ecureuil. Future Fear (1997) - badly acted sci-fi nonsense with a muddled plot, and a pointlessly fragmented narrative (that does it no favours), this features a helicopter dogfight in the desert between 'gunship' versions of Hughes 500 and a newer Boeing (MD) 500E - both furnished by Executive Helicopters - which ends with the clumsily faked pyrotechnics of an unconvincing crash 'n' burn sequence. Future Hunters (1986) - "in this low-budget Indiana Jones ripoff, a Bell 47G-4A helicopter is destroyed by a hidden bomb." - NATHAN DECKER |
