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A GUIDE TO HELICOPTERS
IN CINEMA & TELEVISION

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V (1984) - this successful sci-fi TV serial was created by Kenneth Johnson, and featured reptilian aliens invading the Earth. It is notable as both a genre thriller and an allegory of Nazism. V (for 'victory'?) featured TV news helicopters on the scene as giant spaceships arrive to hover menacingly over American cities, and some proper rotary action, using military gunships and civilian transports, when the humans start to fight back against technologically-superior occupation forces. A regular series followed, but with lower production values, and fewer helicopter scenes.

The Vanguard (2008) - this British sci-fi horror movie brief footage showing a flight of Apache gunships, including one that appears low-flying over later battlefield scenes, and there's also one shot of a Gazelle helicopter in camouflage paint.

Vantage Point (2008) - this assassination thriller, concerning a US President visiting Spain, features the new 'Marine One' transport, VH-71 Kestrel (from Lockheed Martin's US101, a variant of Agusta-Westland's EH101), on emergency medevac duty from a busy roadway, for the injured president after he's been rescued from kidnappers. Although it looks CGI (and some reports of increasing development costs have put the replacement presidential helicopter fleet project's future in doubt), this film marks the new executive chopper's first screen appearance.

Vertical Limit (2000) - Martin Campbell's mountain rescue adventure sees expert climbers (led by Scott Glenn) flying up the side of K2 in very stormy weather, to jump out of their hovering helicopter (a Bell 212) onto a ledge. A couple of the team nearly fall to their deaths as the chopper is shaken from its position by gale force winds.

Vexille (2007) - this Japanese animated movie features a big twin-rotor troop-ship, with curious bird-like wings (similar to other machines in recent anime), that flies a team of American agents on their raid mission in the pre-title sequence. The climax includes another futuristic helicopter, one that a mad-scientist uses for his escape attempt from Japan, but he's shot down by the heroine and crash lands on a rooftop.

A View To A Kill (1985) - Roger Moore's wrinkly 007 is rather dull with age and much too camp, laidback and mellow... he even leaves the beautiful heroine (Tanya Roberts), safely tucked into bed! However, in this bland James Bond adventure the helicopter sequence, involving a German-built MBB [Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm] Bo-105 with Russian markings, that appears in the film's opening ski sequence, is at least reasonably exciting. In a spy movie where good old Patrick Macnee (once the well-bred charmer John Steed in TV series The Avengers) looks like the film's real tough guy, while the lightweight hero struggles against the smart villains, it's down to the widescreen action scenes to provide what few thrills the picture has to offer.

V.I.P. (1998-9) - first season episode K-Val of this comedy-action TV series (starring Pamela Anderson), about Hollywood bodyguards agency 'Vallery Irons Protection', features an Aerospatiale AS 350BA Squirrel (operated by Jetcopters), which is used by the bad guys to chase, attack, and destroy a radio talk-show host's limousine, but not before the car's driver and passengers have managed to escape to safety inside a warehouse. A VIP hero with a sniper rifle shoots down the helicopter, and the damaged chopper flies out of view behind a building (yes, it's cliché time!) where it promptly crashes and explodes.

Virus (1980) - this Japanese disaster movie features an unmanned aircraft probe that's launched from a submarine. The little machine closely resembles a 'flying saucer' (with an enclosed rotor system keeping it aloft) while it scouts a dead city.

Virus (1998) - a rescue chopper arrives at the very end of this nautical SF-horror thriller, to pluck a failed salvage mission's survivors from the ocean.

Viva Las Vegas (1963) - "Another Elvis extravaganza! Car racer Lucky Jackson (Presley) takes the smokin' hot Ann-Margaret for a ride in a Bell 47G helicopter, to see the Hoover Dam." - NATHAN DECKER

Viva Max! (1969) - "this crazy comedy about a second capture of the Alamo by Mexicans features a strange scene where a US Army Bell 47J-2 helicopter is repelled by the defenders. This is done with a firehose spraying the hovering chopper with water." - NATHAN DECKER
"The 'Army' helicopter was the same (civilian) 47J-2 that I took my second helicopter flight in, when I was a youth. Pilot/ owner Rex Fennel (now deceased) ran Tide Helicopters Co. based in Corpus Christi, Texas and had the opportunity not only to supply his helicopter to the movie, but also to fly it and appear in the movie in a non-speaking part, seated in front of 'General' Keenan Wynn. The movie company painted the helicopter in Army VIP black (or dark green) and white colours, then returned it to white with forest green after filming." - RUBEN RODRIGUEZ

Volcano (1997) - Mick Jackson's hysterically overwrought but nonetheless entertaining disaster movie features a Bell 206 JetRanger, as TV news chopper, providing aerial views of the initial eruption in Los Angeles. When a makeshift dam halts the lava flow, a whole flight of helicopters drop water onto the magma, but these CGI visuals of supposed 'fire-fighting' choppers are wholly unconvincing. This is due, not just to dodgy effects' work, but also the sheer improbability of those choppers flying safely - over a city at night - through dense clouds of abrasive volcanic ash! After that rather silly action sequence, there are further brief appearances for 'digital' or model helicopters in spectacular high-angle shots of the spreading inferno.

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