For three seasons, St. John Hawke is less a character than a gravitational field. Missing in action in Vietnam, he exists in fragments — a face in Hawke's memories in 'Echoes from the Past', a rumor chased through 'HX-1', a name attached to every mission brief his brother ever signed. The entire series runs on the promise Hawke extracted from the F.I.R.M.: find him.
Season 4's 'Blackjack' finally pays the debt. St. John is alive — and his return costs the team everything, arriving in the same hour that takes Dominic Santini and leaves String gravely wounded. The elder Hawke brother steps out of the void and into the cockpit, inheriting the Lady, the Lair and the war his brother fought to find him.
The St. John of the final season is a different flavor of hero — more open than his brooding brother, quicker to work with a team, shaped by years the show wisely leaves half-shadowed (his court-martial defense of an old adversary in 'Code of Silence' hints at the ledger he carries). With Jo Santini, Major Mike Rivers and Jason Locke, he flies Airwolf through her final campaign, closing the saga where it began: with a Hawke at the controls.
And the family grows along the way: Season 3's 'Half-Pint' had already revealed that St. John has a son, Le Van — making the search's resolution a reunion in more ways than one.