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A GUIDE TO HELICOPTERS
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Octopussy (1983) - "in this James Bond movie, an Aerospatiale SA 316 Alouette III, uniquely equipped with floats, takes 007 (Roger Moore) to New Delhi, India. Also, a Eurocopter AS 365C Dauphin brings General Orlov to Kamal's castle, and later is used to chase down the fleeing General Orlov." - NATHAN DECKER

The Omega Man (1971) - Boris Sagal's film of Richard Matheson's sci-fi horror novel, I Am Legend, has a flashback scene where the hero (Charlton Heston) survives a crash in a Bell 47G-2 crash that's caused by a deadly virus suddenly infecting and overcoming the pilot. The helicopter spirals down, while Heston struggle with the controls, but the actual crash landing occurs off-screen and we only see an explosion, then the sequence jumps to Heston crawling away from burning wreckage.

On Deadly Ground (1994) - in the opening scene, a helicopter (ERA Aviation BEll 412EP) brings help to the site of an Alaskan oil-rig fire, before it transports the company executive (Michael Caine) over snowy landscapes, and then his corporate thugs into an Eskimo village. Later, a team of airborne mercenaries hired to kill the hero (Steven Seagal) use a Bell 204 gunship with hi-tech scanners to find him in dense woodlands, but the explosion of an ammo dump at a mountain shack destroys the bad guys' chopper. In another scene, the hero shoots the tail rotor off a Bell 206 JetRanger.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) - in this James Bond film, 007 is played by George Lazenby (surely the weakest ever Bond?), and our superhero spy gets married to a Spanish heiress (amusingly portrayed by Diana Rigg).

"We see a Bell 206 JetRanger flying Bond up to Blofeld's mountain stronghold. Near the end, Bond and his future father-in-law assault Bolfeld's stronghold using three Agusta Bell 204 'Hueys' (operated by Heliswiss)." - NATHAN DECKER / IAN VINCENT FRAIN

Opera (aka: Terror At The Opera, 1987) - one of Dario Argento's genre masterpieces, this mystery horror movie features helicopter air support that helps police search the countryside for a killer on the run.

Outbreak

(1995) - Wolfgang Petersen's sci-fi drama has a military conspiracy with germ warfare plot mixed with action thrills and medical horror. In one scene, Bell 204/ UH-1B helicopters fill the sky when martial law is declared to quarantine a small US town. Later, the heroic doctor (Dustin Hoffman) risks a midair collision by ordering the pilot of his unarmed chopper (an MD-500) to hover in the flight path of a bomber plane, forcing it to veer off and abort its attack mission. Other helicopters appearing in the film include: Bell UH-1B and Bell 206L Long Rangers (supposedly from Zaire Air Force), and Bell 206 JetRanger TV-news chopper.

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