Tony Blews

According to yesterdays papers, the SAS are taking delivery of four Eurocopter Daupin, which will be camoflaged in civilian markings, for surprise attacks on terrorists.

“Nobody will bat an eyelid when one of them in civvy colours turns up over a built-up area. It looks the same as a corporate ride.” one of the SAS told The Sun, even though the only known UK owner of one is the dwarfish footballist Michael Owen.

These helicopters, which come with state-of-the-art communications equipment and a quiet rotor system will provide an ideal platform for anti-terrorism.

Nice. Anti-terrorism is good.   But…

Buying helicopters from the French isn’t so good, as anyone who ever owned a French car will tell you.

Still, at least they’ll tell you how to fly them and give you the keys, unlike the bloody Americans and the Chinook.

They probably fly for about 200 miles before slowly dissembling themselves into component parts, probably somewhere over Cheshire.

However, Eurocopter is the successor of Aérospatiale, the company who made the SA-341G Gazelle.

Now you may not recall the Gazelle. Here is a picture of one:

Hmm, that looks familiar…doesn’t it have the same tail section as…

Yup, its Blue Thunder.

In reality, the Blue Thunder helicopter was a cosmetic make-over of the Gazelle. It was intended to make it look scarier, unlike the current plan…

Looking back on the Blue Thunder film (not the TV series, never look back at that), Tactical Helicopter Offensive Response, THOR, was the “proposed use of military helicopters to quell disorder” during the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

Now I’m not drawing any parallels here, but by the time the 22 Regiment acually get their hands on these things the Olympics will be nigh on hand. But they probably won’t work properly, and will need to go back to the main dealer after a week. Being French.

I’m just thinking… and I think that is still legal.

“He checks his sanity with a wristwatch?”

“Sure, what do you use? A dipstick?”

What am I on about?

How about the best 80s cop/action movie featuring a lead character called Murphy, that wasn’t Robocop, and the best Roy Scheider film that didn’t end with an exploding shark?

Clearly there is only one thing I could be on about…

Blue Thunder

The classic 1983 film about a combat helicopter adapted for law enforcement, starring the aforementioned shark killer, Malcolm “ultra-violence” McDowell and Daniel “easily defeated by a child” Stern.

Blue Thunder and its spin-off TV series pre-dated the other helicopter show Airwolf, which was, frankly, rubbish.

The movie itself was one of the films that I used to get from the video shop all the time as a kid, mainly because they had a crap selection of films. Its so rare for it to be shown on TV, that I had to post about it. Thanks Five US!

If you don’t remember it… watch the trailer…