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A GUIDE TO HELICOPTERS
IN CINEMA & TELEVISION

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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 splashdown site, 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 weapon 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 revisits Vietnam to search for POWs and, when he finds some, decides to bring them home against all the odds - but the helicopter he steals for this rescue operation is damaged and it crashes... An Aerospatiale SA 330 Puma (from PHI) was converted to simulate a Mil Mi-24 Hind gunship.

RAMBO III

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.

Rear Window (1954) - "this classic Hitchcock thriller features a Bell 47D-1 helicopter, with the rare landing wheel kit." - NATHAN DECKER

RED DAWN

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 3).
"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.

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.

REIGN OF FIRE

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.

Chinook helicopters airlift, in Reptilian

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.

RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE

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.]

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 off the 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

RIPTIDE

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.

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.

Rodan (1956) - "in this Japanese monster movie, the defence forces use a Sikorsky S-51 to scout the volcanic crater." - BILL HIERS

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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