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Race To Space (2001) - the climactic scenes of this American film, based on a true story about the first chimp into space, feature a CH-3
(Sikorsky S-61) helicopter used to locate the Mercury capsule after it returns safely to Earth, and (courtesy of some obvious digital visual effects)
there are three S-58 Seahorse rescue choppers overfly the Pacific splash-down area, and one of these airlifts the capsule back to the Florida launch
site.
Rage (1972) -
"a late-model Bell 47G helicopter stars in this movie about the military's chemical-weapons
experiment gone wrong..." - NATHAN DECKER
Raid On Entebbe (1976) - Idi Amin (played by Yaphet Kotto) makes a flying visit, in a Bell Twin Huey, to see the hostage passengers of the
hijacked French airliner at the Ugandan airport.
Raise The Titanic (1980) -
"the 'Russian' helicopter seen landing on the deck of the liner is actually an American UH-1
Huey with big red stars painted on the sides." - NATHAN DECKER
Rambo: First Blood II (1985) - in this sequel, Sylvester Stallone's grunting hero
John Rambo revisits Vietnam to search for POWs and, when he finds some, decides to bring them
home against all the odds - but the Huey helicopter he steals for this rescue operation is damaged and it crashes... An Aerospatiale SA330 Puma
(from PHI) was converted to simulate a Mil Mi-24 Hind gunship.
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Rancho Deluxe (1975) - a modern-day comedy western, about cattle rustlers in Montana, this movie features a Bell 47G helicopter.
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Ransom (1997) - Ron Howard's child-kidnap thriller sees two FBI helicopters track the father (Mel Gibson) on his phone-directed runaround
to deliver the ransom money. At the pickup site, SWAT cops abseil from a chopper to the ground after shooting one of villains while they were
airborne.
Rat Race (2001) - in Jerry Zucker's chaotic comedy, pilot Tracy (Amy Smart) flies a Eurocopter AS350 A-star from Las Vegas over to
Silver City in New Mexico, where she drops in to visit her two-timing boyfriend (TV Superman Dean Cain). She blows over his plastic garden
pool using the chopper's downdraft, and then does a low-flying pursuit along the highway to catch his fleeing truck - but the accident-prone
helicopter's engine fails, so Tracy has to crash land in desert.
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Rear Window (1954) -
"this classic Hitchcock thriller features a Bell 47D-1 helicopter, with the rare landing wheel
kit." - NATHAN DECKER
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Red (2010) - this action movie, based upon a comicbook by Warren Ellis, features a Bell 206L Long Ranger with a gunman aboard. The chopper
tracks and then attacks our heroes (played by Bruce Willis and Helen Mirren) at the airport.
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Red Heat (1985) - a non-sequel follow-up to cult women-in-prison flick Chained Heat (1983), this features an AS-350 that picks up the
female spy from a field rendezvous. A German military patrol spots the helicopter and troops open fire as it passes overhead, but the chopper flies
away unscathed (which suggests the production could afford a helicopter scene, but not a rotary action sequence).
Red Sands (2009) - this military thriller and supernatural
mystery features a couple of CGI Apache gunships flying over an Afghan city.
Red Scorpion  (1988)
- a giant Soviet helicopter gunship is used to help burn an African village, and it also fires rockets to destroy the rebels' military camp. The
Spetznaz commando hero (Dolph Lundgren) shoots this huge chopper down with a hi-tech machine-gun (more convincing, at least, than the very similar
stunt in Rambo III).
"Red Scorpion also has a fake Hind (a modified Sikorsky S-62/ HH-52A), which I have read
is the exact same machine used in Missing In Action III from the year before. In fact, knowing how cheaply some of these movies were made,
I would not be surprised if the footage in Red Scorpion was lifted intact from M.I.A. III..." -
NATHAN DECKER / IAN VINCENT FRAIN
Red Scorpion 2 (1994) - a transport chopper flies the paramilitary anti-terrorist squad to a training camp, ready for the strike against
a neo-Nazi group (led by John Savage). Later, the heroes' backup team fly to the bad guys' security compound to rescue their captured buddies.
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ReGenesis
(2004) - this Canadian drama about investigative scientists was created Christina Jennings. The first episode, Baby Bomb, has a Eurocopter
350 used by the chief scientist (Peter Outerbridge) for air transport to the site of an epidemic.
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Remington Steele (1982-7) - this popular TV detective series of romantic comedy adventures, stars Stephanie Zimbalist and Pierce Brosnan,
with very occasional use of helicopters. In first season episode Steele Trap, our sleuthing heroes fly in a Bell 206 JetRanger to an island
off Baja California, and in Steele's Gold, a prospector arrives by air (another JetRanger) at the old western style town for a showdown finale.
Repo Man (1984) - this cult movie debut by director Alex Cox features a
Bell 407 in its climactic sequence. Aboard the helicopter, a gunman shoots one of the repossessed car drivers. The chopper also appears in the finale
with the flying car.
Reptilian (aka: Yonggary, 2000) - this Korean monster movie follows the tradition of Godzilla with a blockbuster-sized adventure
produced on a modest TV movie budget. It has brief use of stock footage but most of its scenes with military helicopters are cheap, wholly unconvincing,
digital effects. A busy squadron of Cobra gunships launch rocket and missile attacks on the gigantic resurrected dinosaur, Yonggary, that easily
destroys eight helicopters before the rest are recalled to base. Later, a Chinook transports a team of jet-packed flying troops into battle against
the fire-breathing, people stomping, city-smashing creature, yet elite airborne rangers fail to stop its rampage. After Yonggary's become an oversized
superhero, and finally defeated a second monster, it takes a flight of 16 Chinooks to airlift the big reptile safely away from the city. It's an
extremely silly film with some terribly wooden performances, and lots of obvious CGI work, but still quite good fun, overall.
Rescue Dawn (2006) - Werner Herzog's drama of POW survival
and escape from captivity in Vietnam is based on a true story about a pilot shot down over the jungle, and the movie features several helicopter
sequences, with US military Hueys used for search and rescue behind enemy lines, including the climactic flights to safety, and from the Army hospital
to the American warship.
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Resident Evil: Degeneration (2008) - a spin-off animated
movie that's more closely based on a video game source than the live-action films, this 3D CGI features a helicopter (not clearly visible) taking
a team of heroes to the rooftop of a VIP lounge at the quarantined airport. There's also a Black Hawk type at ruined bio-labs, and one A-Star chopper
departing from a cliff-top with the hero in the closing scene.
Resident Evil: Extinction (2007) - this sci-fi horror movie sequel, directed by Russell Mulcahy, features an Aerospatiale AS350-B2 Ecureuil
(operated by South Coast Helicopters), used by Umbrella corporation bad guys
to get from their Nevada hideaway to dustbowl Las Vegas. There's also the brief appearance of a Sikorsky CH-53 (S-80) Super Stallion - possibly
all CGI work - which airlifts a cargo container packed with infected undead to ambush the heroes. During the climactic scenes,
Alice (Milla Jovovich) organises the survivors' assault on the desert base, so that Claire
(Ali Larter) can steal the A-star helicopter, and lead their escape to Alaska.
[Thanks to Bill Hiers for these screen-shots above.]
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The Return Of Swamp Thing (1989) - in this monster movie sequel, that is based upon a series of comic-books, the villain uses a Bell 206 JetRanger
to search for the creature.
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Return Of The Saint (1978-9) - this TV series stars Ian Ogilvy as Simon Templar, the hero of Leslie Charteris' novels. Only one season of
24 episodes was produced for this revival. Episode 11, The Imprudent Professor, features an Aerospatiale SA-341 Gazelle, in action scenes
that involve a motor-yacht.
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The Revenant (2009) - this sci-fi horror comedy about vigilante vampires includes CGI for JetRanger and A-Star patrols through the city's
night sky in its climactic scenes.
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The Rig (2010) - this monster movie set on an oil-drilling
platform features some Bell JetRangers and LongRangers parked on the airfield in pre-titles sequence. Later, after a storm has cleared, a survivor
is picked up by a Sikorsky S-76A which lands on the rig's helipad. That's followed by a Bell 407 flying from the mainland airfield, but (in a stupid
continuity error) when this chopper reaches the platform, it's become the S-76A again. Both the 407 and the S-76A have the yellow and black livery
of operator PHI, Inc.
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Right At Your Door (2006) - in this low-budget drama about terrorist attacks on Los Angeles, a JetRanger flies over and later circles bombed
areas. There's also stock footage of a Sea King helicopter that marks the arrival of military forces.
The Right Stuff (1983) - superb epic docudrama from
director Philip Kaufman, based on Tom Wolfe's book about the early years of NASA and famous American pioneers of the Mercury programme. US Navy
rescue helicopters pluck the heroic astronauts to safety, when their various space capsules splashdown in the ocean.
"This movie has a lot of helicopters in it. These include three SH-3G Sea Kings from aircraft
carrier USS Coral Sea for the recovery of the space capsule at sea. These were a bit of a flub as Sea Kings hadn't even flown in 1958, when the
scene was supposed to take place. As well, the US Army loaned the production a dozen UH-1 Hueys." - NATHAN DECKER
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Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (2011) - reinventing a sci-fi movie franchise with CGI, this restarts the epic in near-future San Francisco.
When the smarter apes escape from captivity, there's a California highway patrol helicopter (a Bell UH-1 Huey) which pursues the free apes onto the
Golden Gate Bridge. A cop aboard the chopper fires his machine-gun at the ape's leader, but super-chimp Caesar throws a chain into the open cabin,
and then a gorilla jumps onto the front of the helicopter, sending it out of control so it crashes and burns on the bridge. Another big chimpanzee
shoves the helicopter's wreckage over the side and into the bay.
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Road House (1989) - in this movie, villain rides in a Bell 206L Long Ranger to his lakeside mansion, and tells his pilot to fly low over
a neighbour's farm across the lake, just to spook the horses.
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The Rock (1998) - renegade US Marines (led by Ed Harris) fly helicopters to land on the disused island prison of Alcatraz, where they hold
civilian sightseers hostage, and threaten to bomb San Francisco with chemical weapons. Later, three other military choppers bring an anti-terrorist
squad (led by Michael Biehn) to rescue the prisoners and save the city.
Rocketeer (1991) - in this period comicbook style adventure movie, the spectacular finale has a gyro-plane, as Howard Hughes (Terry O'Quinn)
flies to rescue of the hero and heroine, picking up both with a rope ladder to save them from atop the airship Hindenburg as it burns over Hollywood.
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Rodan (1956) - "in this Japanese monster movie, the defence forces use a Sikorsky S-51
to scout the volcanic crater." - BILL HIERS
Roujin Z (1991) - this Japanese animated movie is a sci-fi comedy featuring a helicopter flying through treetops while in city-wide airborne
pursuit of a runaway robotic hospital bed on a monorail track.
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Royce (1994) - this amiable comedy-adventure was made for TV by director Rod Holcomb, and stars James Belushi as American secret agent,
Shane Royce. He's sent on a rescue mission to Europe, to save the kidnapped son of a US Senator, but ends up trying to halt the theft of 500
ex-Soviet nuclear missile warheads from a train that's hijacked by ruthless terrorist, Gribbon (Miguel Ferrer). The movie co-stars Chelsea Field
and Peter Boyle, and features a rare screen appearance for the Russian utility helicopter, a twin piston engine Kamov Ka-26 Hoodlum.
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Rules Of Engagement (2000) - US Marines use helicopters operating from an aircraft carrier for a mission to Yemen, for defence of the American
embassy, and to rescue the ambassador's family.
Runaway (1984) - Michael Crichton's SF thriller about defective and sabotaged robots has Tom Selleck's cop hero reveal that he's afraid
of heights - while aboard a helicopter on his way to deal with a faulty farm machine.
Runaway Train (1985) - an escaped convict (Jon Voight)
is trapped aboard an out-of-control loco in this superb action movie. The authorities use helicopters to track its progress.
The Running Man (1987) - Paul Michael Glaser directs this sci-fi satire about convicts forced into gambling with their lives in a violent
TV gameshow. A helicopter scene occurs early on, when a police pilot (Arnold Schwarzenegger) refuses orders to fire upon civilians from his
heavily-armed gunship.
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Russian Roulette (1975) - in this routine political thriller, a Canadian cop (George Segal) becomes tangled up in a plot to assassinate the
Russian premier while on a visit to Vancouver. For the hotel rooftop finale, the featured police helicopter, a Eurocopter (MBB) BO-105LS, is damaged
by gunfire.
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