While demonstrating the capabilities of the new prototype supercopter codenamed 'Airwolf', Dr. Charles Moffet goes rogue, steals the chopper and kills almost all of the observers. At least one man -- Michael Coldsmith Briggs III survives. Briggs, codenamed 'Archangel' is the head of a covert organization called 'The Firm' and Archangel calls upon the one man in the world he knows that can retrieve the copter. The problem is Stringfellow Hawke is not only a loner, but a recluse as well. The amount of money the Firm is willing to pay for Airwolf's recovery is irrelevant. Hawke wants just one thing - the safe return of his brother, Saint John, who was captured during the Vietnam war and is evidently a POW.
Hawke and Dom must stop a suspected traitor from turning an advanced military fighter over to the Russians in exchange for his son who was born in Vietnam. Things get complicated, though, when Hawke realizes that he was also involved with the boy's mother during roughly the same era as the child's birth.
An ambitious executive at the Firm makes a subversive play for Archangel's job. A bomb is planted aboard a vintage helicopter owned by Dominic Santini and he's forced to crash land. When Hawke and Archangel go hunting for Dom, Airwolf is ambushed and shot down. The two must convince a group of locals to help them repair their damaged tail rotor. Complicating matters on Dom's end, he must contend with a stowaway aboard his chopper -- a young girl searching for her dad.
A Russian mole discovers that scientists in the U.S.S.R. have developed a lethal serum that instantly kills anyone exposed to it. He steals a vial of the serum and contacts his friend Archangel for help in escaping the country with his family. Archangel dispatches Hawke and Santini for the rescue effort, but Airwolf can't handle that much passenger weight -- unless all her armaments are stripped leaving the supercopter defenseless.
A movie producer hires Santini Air for a dangerous stunt involving the landing of a helicopter onto the roof of a moving semi. Dom and String nearly come to blows, however, when String tries to convince Dom that his reaction time might not be up to snuff for this particular action sequence. Things get even more dicey when it appears that the production might just be an elaborate cover for a high-stakes gold heist.
Hawke meets a mercenary who claims to have information regarding his missing brother. When they part company, Hawke loses consciousness in his helicopter and crashes. When he comes to, he finds himself in a hospital. The medical staff inform him that he has been in a coma for the better part of a year. His friends, Archangel and Dom, were killed on a POW camp raid, but in the process, their heroism helped rescue Hawke's brother Saint John. Believing that his "mission" is over, Hawke reveals the location of Airwolf to his captors, then discovers that it has all been an elaborate ruse and he has inadvertantly turned over the super copter to a group of foreign conspirators.
An Israeli war crimes hunter is killed by a suspected Nazi named Hans Daubert in France. His daughter vows revenge and seeks the help of String and Dom, along with Airwolf, to bring him to justice. Complicating matters is Archangel's involvement with Daubert who is a known arms dealer selling to the powers that he chooses to in order to influence political outcomes in the world -- and Archangel is his supplier!
Santini makes an unauthorized flight to Cuba in order to rescue two political prisoners who are being ransomed for $2 million. However, while there, the exchange site is attacked and the ransom money is stolen. While flying back to the mainland, Santini is forced to crash land back on Cuba and Hawke must brave a hurricane in Airwolf to rescue his friend. When String and Dom are reunited, the pair must negotiate with a band of freedom fighters who raised the capital to ransom their compadres and are not convinced of Santini's innocence in the theft of the funds. To make matters more interesting, Archangel is supplying weapons to a paramilitary band that just may have had a hand in stealing the ransom money.
North and South Limbawe are in conflict over oil and a despotic General plans to overthrow his own government in South Limbawe and attacks his neighbors to the North. String and Dom are sent by Archangel to aid North Limbawe and it's leader, Seku Logana, but Logana has his own prejudices about receiving aid for his cause. Also in the mix is an old Vietnam buddy of Hawke's, Marty Vidor, who is working as a mercenary for South Limbawe, and Hawke is hesitant to take him on since Vidor just may know the location of the missing Saint John.
Dr. Robert Winchester is a brilliant researcher and a former test pilot who helped design Airwolf. Now, he's asking for Hawke's help in test flying a simulator that he's designed to enable the Firm to train future test pilots to fly Airwolf. Reluctantly, Hawke agrees, but determines that the simulator's "feel" is a little off. Archangel convinces Hawke to let Winchester hook up the real Airwolf to his computers in order to get a more realistic demonstration. This allows Winchester to engage in a little friendly flying competition with Hawke but it also allows the Russians to nearly get their hands on the high tech super copter.
Archangel warns String about a zealous government bureaucrat named D.G. Bogard who will stop at nothing until he finds Airwolf. Dom and Hawke take time out from shooting a military training film to hide Airwolf in a different location before it can be discovered, but Bogard catches on to their ruse and tracks Hawke back to the new hideaway. To complicate things, an eager pilot tails Dom and Hawke in an effort to convince Santini that she deserves a job working for his company.
After an old Vietnam buddy of Hawke's is shot in the desert when trying to escape a corrupt Sheriff, Hawke gets a call from an inmate who had been in jail with the man to aleart him of the escape, and flies with Dominic in Airwolf to Pope County, Texas, to investigate. There, Hawke meets Highway Patrol Deputy Caitlin O'Shannessy, who had a run in with Sheriff Bogard prior to the killing; but Hawke's appearance on the scene sees him arrested by Bogard and released on a private game reserve, where gun-happy sportsmen pay big money to hunt big game – and Hawke is the latest bait...
Eddie, a friend of Dominic's, was once a pilot until a air crash in which his passengers were killed, causing him to lose his nerve and turn to drink as a result. Living alone in his trailer in the desert, Eddie's alcohol problem has recently become even worse after supposedly seeing lights in the sky in the middle of the night. Though trying to help his friend, Dominic is as skeptical as everyone else, blaming the sightings on Eddie's drunken state, until one night he sees the lights too... The next morning, Hawke arrives to find that the pair of them have vanished, and in searching for them, stumbles upon a fanatical militarist's organization, who is planning to launch his own nuclear missile against Russia...
In the midst of it's key part in delivering and collecting a leading American scientist to top secret sanctions aimed at cooling international tensions with Russians, Airwolf develops a seeming computer virus in it's systems, which periodically takes pilot control and makes it a potential killing machine in the air. The systems have been taken over buy a "time-bomb" left by the chopper's evil creator, Dr. Moffett, who has programmed it to begin the deadly behaviour if not given it a recognition code by him at that time. Hawke and Dominic must decide whether to let the Firm scientists try and work on the machine - risking having them snatching it back away from them - or to find another way to try and cure The Lady before completing their part in the sanctions, knowing that if they fail to completely cure it, they jeopardise not only international relations, but potentially hundreds of lives...
After Hawke rescues Dominic's niece Holly from a mobster's compound in Mexico, strange things start happening at Santini Air. At first, Hawke and Dominic assume that the mobster is trying to scare the girl, but, especially when Hawke turns down Holly's advances of romance, the incidents get worse... Meanwhile, Caitlin O'Shannessy arrives fresh from her escapade with Hawke against the corrupt Police of Pope County, and looks for work at Santini Air. He close relationship with Hawke somehow seems to fuel the incidents...
Santini Air is hired for a 30 day period by agents on behalf of a industrial millionaire, to be on stand-by to pilot the man on an important journey when called upon. Dominic is excited at the prospect of the high-paying job, but Hawke is more sceptical and intends to find out just why they've been given the contract. But unbeknown to any of them, Caitlin's new boyfriend is plotting to assassinate the millionaire; and matters are not helped any by some malfunctions that Airwolf is suffering...
Dominic is distraught to hear that his daughter Sally-Anne - whom Hawke never even knew existed - has been found dead on the beach after over-dosing, in the Caribbean Island of San Remo, where Dom himself was born. Detouring in their way to a top-secret Airwolf mission for the Firm, Hawke flies Dominic to the island to attend the funeral, only for it to end in an argument with his bitter ex-wife Lila. Returning from their mission, they hear that Lila was murdered the previous night, and Dominic is arrested as the prime suspect. When Archangel is ordered not to allow Firm involvement as not to risk uncovering the secret mission, Hawke heads to the luxurious San Remo to investigate the murder for himself, and finds the island is living in the shadow of a new gambling casino, run by a very shady character with great influence in the area...
String must add Caitlin to the Airwolf crew, in order to rescue Archangel from behind enemy lines.
When new hi-tech attack chopper HX1 is stolen by an elite group of mercenaries, the tactics used fits those that Hawke's MIA brother St. John was trained in, and Hawke is certain that his brother may somehow be involved. Dominic begs him to leave well alone, but Hawke is adamant, and with Archangel insisting that if it cant be retrieved, the Firm will blow HX1 and anyone flying it out of the sky, Hawke goes back into his past and some of the people he knows from it, to desperately try and get a lead on the group and mercenaries and possibly St. John... But the HX1 is so powerful, it may even be able to blow Airwolf out of the sky...
Caitlin is a passenger on board a plane which Airwolf is sent to search for after the plane is hijacked and forced down at sea.
String receives information that St. John is being held in a POW camp, but by the time a rescue operations put into effect St. John has been moved.
While filming aerial footage, String and Dom accidentally get footage of a mobster believed dead.
String and Caitlin are sent to a remote Alaskan research station where a deadly Russian bacteria has been let loose.
The Airwolf crew decides to help a group of Vietnamese farmers get their crop to market, after a warlord threatens their lives.
A pilot who escaped from terrorists who stole an experimental aircraft guidance computer leads the Airwolf team to the remote community where the terrorists are holed up.
Dom inherits from the estate of a millionaire whom he had earlier rescued from a plane crash.
The Airwolf team is drawn into fighting a Banana Republic coup when they set out to rescue their latest team member, "Doc", who has been kidnapped to treat the nation's leader.
The Airwolf crew befriend a runaway looking for revenge on the drug runners that murdered his uncle.
While working on a music video, String helps a country singer whose manager plans to kill her in an effort to boost album sales.
String and a reporter friend are taken hostage by terrorists who have taken over a Christian commune.
String must bring in a disgruntled former Firm employee who's been denied his retirement benefits.
After being forced down by a volcano eruption, String and Dom discover a mining town being run as a slave colony.
String is captured by Latin American revolutionaries while attempting to rescue American archaeological students trapped by a coup.
Hawke takes a seemingly luxurious Santini Air job, piloting and accompanying a beautiful, high-flying business woman for a few days, but ends up duped into being hypnotised in an elaborate plot by master criminal John Bradford Horn. Horn has desire to take over a small country as his own, and intends to have the hypnotised Hawke deliver Airwolf to him so he can use the chopper's fierce fire-power to succeed in his goal...
Hawke is at a friend's prestigious ceremony when Archangel pulls him out and accuses him of being involved in a robbery the previous night in which items that could be used by Airwolf were stolen by thieves in a helicopter matching the Santini Air chopper. But Archangel is suspended by the Firm, who've built a new model of Airwolf – Airwolf II, called 'Redwolf', and piloted by Harlan "Tex" Jenkins, who worked on the original Airwolf project and has always insisted that he, not Dr. Moffett, was the true creator. But things backfire for the Firm when Jenkins steals Airwolf II - and before he hands it over to the foreign agents he's in league with, he plans a showdown with his old rival – Stringfellow Hawke; a duel that brings Airwolf vs. Airwolf...
String is aided in the rescue of a kidnapped industrial designer by the man's autistic son.
Hawke and Dominic arrive for a rendezvous with Archangel in the desert, only to find his jeep abandoned and no sign of him. The F.I.R.M., who have reason to believe that he has turned traitor, give him 48 hours to be found before they send in the Zebra squad – an assassination squad that take out suspected traitors. Dominic asks for the help of a reluctant psychic in finding Archangel's whereabouts, much to Hawke's scepticism. Archangel is actually being held by a rich crime baron who is determined to get his hands on "The Fortune Teller" – an in-flight device that out-guesses the opponent's next move - of which Archangel has been involved of the development...
String falls for the Czech woman scientist, whom he's helping defect to the west.
When a professional group of thieves steal a batch of thermonuclear detonators, which can cause mass destruction if they fall into the wrong hands, Archangel has reason to suspect that the robbery was an inside job, and sends Hawke and Santini to use Airwolf to track down the detonators before they can be used by the criminals. Meanwhile, while Hawke and Dom are busy tracking down the detonators, a man arrives at Santini Air asking Caitlin to give him flying lessons, and soon strikes up a romance with her – but unbeknown to her, he is actually an ex-F.I.R.M. employee who was the inside man on the robbery, and now plans to use her in a trap to get his hands on Airwolf, which he intends to use to fly the detonators out of the country with...
At a National Air Race show, Hawke and Dominic befriend an attractive pilot racer, unaware that she's being pursued by her boss and his henchmen after stealing some tapes that can prove that a new combat jet is too unstable to be flown – something that her boss is determined to cover up at any cost...
When "The Mongoose", a new laser weapon, is stolen, the thieves fall out, and one of them contacts The F.I.R.M. with hope of returning the weapon for reward. Archangel sends Hawke, with Dominic and Caitlin, to work undercover as stunt men at a travelling Wild West show where the man is hiding out, but when their contact is killed in a suspicious "accident", it's up to them to find out the whereabouts of the weapon for themselves before the thieves can sell it to foreign agents...
Arriving in Airwolf in a war-torn South American country, Hawke, Dominic and Caitlin rendezvous with "living legend" freedom fighter leader El Gato, in a mission to rescue a US scientist who is being held captive. Dominic and Caitlin wait at the pick-up point as Hawke and El Gato set off on the rescue bid, but during the escape after locating the scientist, El Gato is killed, and Hawke's radio to Airwolf is destroyed. Hiding in from the pursing terrorist army in the area's dense growth, Hawke and the rather arrogant scientist meet a teacher and her group of hearing-impaired children, who are homeless after village was destroyed by the terrorists. Hawke attempts to lead the group to safety as they head to the pick-up point, trying to find a new home for the teacher and her students, and all the time avoiding the terrorist army along the way...
The families of one of String's friends from Vietnam are kidnapped along with Dom and Caitlin by people seeking revenge against those who destroyed their village during the Vietnam conflict.
At the funeral of a Vietnam comrade, Hawke takes it upon himself to deliver the man's coffin flag and Congressional Medal of Honour to the soldier's brother, Billy Fargo. But arriving in the small rural town where Fargo is reported to be living, he finds the whole area inhabited solely by youths, all under their "father" Fargo's influence. Fargo emerges to be a deranged "peace-loving" hippie, who, with his wily cohort Sabrina, is planning to use the youngsters to help in a plot to make a destructive anti-nuclear statement to the world...
String decides to adopt St. John's Amerasian son when theson's discovery points to St. John being dead.
Dominic introduces Hawke and Caitlin to an old friend, Big Cec - the owner of an oil drilling company in the desert, and his son Little Cec, who works at the company. But they find themselves walking into the middle of a feud that has emerged between the two since the death of Big Cec's wife. With Dom staying with the pair for a few days, he is shocked to learn that Little Cec was thrown out of college for selling marijuana, and is even more concerned when he discovers that he now is being forced by a head of the oil company to make drug runs in part of a drug smuggling operation. Dom sets about trying to put things right, but it is no easy task going against the ruthless drug runners...
A man who once failed to steal Airwolf is given a second chance when a young lady he knows stumbles upon its hiding place.
After Tess Dixon, the wife of infamous crime-lord Cullen Dixon, escapes his bodyguards while swimming in the sea at night, Archangel asks Hawke and Santini to deliver her safely via Airwolf to a top-secret location, where she will testify against a cartel of corrupt businessmen who are plotting to assassinate high-ranking officials in Washington. Tess is an old flame of Hawke's, something which makes him very reluctant to accept the mission, before he finally agrees, but they come under continual attack as Cullen Dixon's men aim to see that Tess never makes it to testify...
String and Dom become involved in a custody dispute when a friend of Strings who was about to be divorced dies leaving his wife and mother to battle for his infant son.
At Caitlin’s sorority reunion kidnappers after one of her “sisters” bungle the job and end up holding the whole reunion hostage.
String discovers that an old friend is a double agent when a schematic he was to turn over to the FIRM is stolen.
The wife of a deceased old friend of Hawke's begs him to rescue her son Terry, who is in a corrupt Mexican prison after being framed, with a bad heart condition. After visiting the prison posing as the boy's uncle, in order to survey the layout, Hawke, Dominic and Caitlin make the rescue bit; but the attempt fails when Terry attempts to take an ill friend with them, causing Hawke himself to be captured and held in the prison...
Hawke is doing some late-night fishing on the lake outside his cabin, when he sees a helicopter fly over and drop a body into the water. Pulling the unconscious, dumped young woman out and taking her to hospital, he finds that the girl has amnesia due to her trauma, but doctor's examination indicates that she is a drug user and worked as a prostitute. Hawke sets out to help the girl find out her true identity, and just what trouble she was in that had led to people trying kill her - but when the hit-men who had dumped her into the lake find out that she is still alive, they set out to see that neither girl or Hawke are around to uncover the truth about her...
String takes group of wheelchair-bound Vietnam war vets on a mountain hike adventure, but they wind up fighting for thier lives when a deranged mountain man, wants them off his mountain at any cost.
String comes to the aid of his nephew who asks String for help when his mother disappears for a week.
