Can anyone tell me what happened to the Blue Thunder helecopter after filming and where is it today?

Thanks.

Not sure about Blue Thunder herself, but the miniature of the other helicopter Malcolm McDowall flew at the climax used to hang from the ceiling of one of the "Planet Hollywoods" before they folded.

I'm not remember which one, but it was the one that had the Mad Max Interceptor that turned out to be phony. McDowall's copter hung right over it.

You can see some pics of it on the official Mad Max site in the "Interceptor" section.

Last I heard, what was left of it was on display at Universal's theme park in Florida. I could be mis-remembering that of course.

You might find these interesting:
http://bthunder.cjb.net/
http://www.gregdonner.org/blue_thunder/blue_thunder.html

If you do a Google seach for "Blue Thunder" there are plenty of fan sites about the movie, tv show, and the BT itself.

John O.

Last I heard, what was left of it was on display at Universal's theme park in Florida. I could be mis-remembering that of course.
Close; it is at Disney/MGM Studios theme park and can be seen on the "Backlot Tour."

Qapla'

SSB

I concur. That was where I saw it. Don't know how many choppers were built for the production though.

There were suppose to be two flying, an at least two mock-ups for just sitting there (One got smashed by the train), plus the mock-up of the front for process screen work. I was told at Disney/mgm that what they have is the cabin mock-up for use in the studio, and outside work where they don't have to show the whole helicopter sitting on the ground. How true that is I don't know.

I remember seeing the Blue Thunder in the "McGiver" pilot, and a commerical for Wang Computers.

I always wanted to do a version of the model loaded with weapons as a Thrush attack helicopter. I think that it would look good in black, and grey with the thrush emblem on it.

David.

IIRC, there were also 2 RC practical miniatures built of BT as well as one of the ship Malcom McDowell flies.

Two Blue Thunders were built, a primary and a backup I imagine. After the film, the ship was used in the short lived Blue Thunder TV series as well as the Wang commerical (I didn't know about the Macguyver appearance). Last appearance of both blues that I can remember was in the ABC TV mini-series "Amerika" about the Soviets being in control of the US and both choppers were given flat black paintjobs instead of their original blue coloring. After that, who knows where they disappeared to (after MacGuyver anyway).

The cockpit of Blue Thunder also did make an appearance in Firefox for the Russian helicopters approaching the sub that was refuelling Gant's plane. This is a bit unusual as Firefox came out in theaters about 3 months before Blue Thunder did, meaning this would be the first appearance for Blue Thunder on screen (with the exception of movie trailers anyway).

"Blue thunder" was actualy a modified French Alouette I believe......

I remember when the movie came out someone mentioned it being a modified french helicopter. Haven't seen the movie since I was in college back in the 80s, maybe its time for a trip to the video store.

"Blue thunder" was actualy a modified French Alouette I believe......




Sorry, it was a Gazelle. Both were made by the French company Aerospatiale, allied at that time with Westland in England. Since then Aerospatiale joined with Messerschmidt to form Eurocopter.

big-dog is right, it's a Gazelle. It's the same type that was used in the tv series "The Highwayman".David.

Gazelle!!! Thats right!!!!! knew it was one of those

In honesty I always preferred Airwolf. Last week I got to see a Bell 222 up close, as in I was in it. Saw it take off twice and land. Man the downdraft off that thing literally forced me to lean into it. Those 2 broad chord blades blew the emergency door open. I love the 119 Koala and the 109 Power that live at the ER, but Mercy Air's 222 blew them away.

Ya think that little thing makes a wind, stand next to a Huey taking off! Whew!

I got to ride in a 222 a year ago when I was writing a story about a local air-ambulance service. It was quite cool to be flying along in the same type of chopper they used for Airwolf, though the fact that the pilot had to take off and fly for a while to burn off enough fuel to be able to lift off with a total of four people on board made me chuckle about the weight of all the mythical armor and armaments on Airwolf.

I liked both helicopters, but Blue Thunder definitely always looked funky to me.

I spent almost a month underneath a MH-53E Sea Dragon that was being towed backwards by a cable by a ship at 35+ knots as a safety diver in a small boat(It was a test to see how the helicopter did in a tailwind), that's a beast with an impressive rotor blast.

It was when "Blue Thunder" was running, the pilots and crew big gripe about the movie was the "whisper mode" on the engine, I'm not a plane buff but according to them most of the noise comes from the rotors moving thru the air. I have no idea if it's true or not, the only reason I qualify it is because they were kind of guys that would send you out to get "bulkhead remover" or left handed monkee wrench if you'd fall for it. I think they also griped the amount of time it spent up on one tank of gas, iirc.

The H-53 is the largest chopper in US service - I wouldn't be surprised if it's rotor wash could level buildings :).