A Musical Note: Main Theme of Airwolf

Airwolf is one of the quintessentially '80s series, the era in which Awesome Vehicles and action-adventure ruled the airwaves. The most famous of these shows, and the one that's been revived more than once, was Knight Rider, which made David Hasslehoff a household name. 

Despite its greater fame, I was never terribly taken with Knight Rider. Airwolf was another story. Starring the late Jan-Michael Vincent and Earnest Borgnine, Airwolf had a doubly preposterous premise: not only was the titular super-chopper utterly ridiculously over-the-top, but also the core plot assumption -- that moody pilot Stringfellow Hawke could somehow keep the Airwolf hidden from the government, hostage for said government retrieving his missing brother from Vietnam, and at the same time keep using said super-helicopter for various missions -- was completely ludicrous.

Yet... as a show, it worked. It worked startlingly well. Moreover, it held upwhen I watched it again decades later, something not true of a number of other shows I remembered fondly (MacGyver comes to mind).  I've written a pretty long essay on the show and why it worked for me on my site (http://grandcentralarena.com/on-my-shelves-airwolf/ ).

For my writing, Airwolf and especially its theme has significance in Grand Central Arena. The smaller reference is in Ariane's rival pilot, Hawke -- who not only shares a name and appearance with Stringfellow Hawke, but is described wearing a jacket that features the snarling wolf logo of the Airwolf itself. 

The larger reference is that an entire scene -- Ariane's  race against Sethrik, culminating in herdeath-defying flight through the Skyfall -- was written to this piece of music, with the Skyfall section being directly written to the final section from about 6:46 onward in this particular version of the theme. In a way, Airwolf is really Ariane's theme, at least in her guise as a pilot.

I hope you also find this piece enjoyable!