If Stringfellow Hawke is Airwolf's soul, Dominic Santini is its heartbeat. A World War II pilot who flew when flying was still a young man's gamble, Dom was a close friend of Hawke's father — he still tells the story of a legendary night in England after the Schweinfurt raid — and when tragedy hollowed out the Hawke family, it was Dom who stayed.
His day job is the best cover story in television: Santini Air, a California charter-and-stunt outfit that flies cameras, crashes cars for the movies, and hides in plain sight the crew of the world's most wanted helicopter. Dom flies stunts with the joy of a man half his age, complains magnificently, and would trade all of it in a heartbeat for the two Hawke boys he considers his own.
Aboard the Lady, Dom is far more than a passenger. He is Airwolf's engineer and systems man, the relief pilot when Hawke is down, and the one who showed Hawke the Valley of the Gods hiding place that became the Lair. Villains keep making the same mistake about him: they see a cheerful old man, and discover a decorated combat pilot with nothing to prove and no reverse gear.
It could not last forever. The Season 4 opener 'Blackjack' takes Dom from the story in an explosion that also nearly kills Hawke — the loss that hands Airwolf, Santini Air and the saga itself to the next generation, including his niece Jo. Ernest Borgnine — an Academy Award winner for Marty long before he climbed into a helicopter — gave the series its warmth for three seasons, and the show never fully recovered from his absence.