Stringfellow Hawke is television's great contradiction: the deadliest pilot alive, and the man who wants none of it. He lives alone in a lakeside cabin in the mountains with his hound Tet, a priceless art collection his grandfather assembled, and a cello he plays to the eagles at dusk. The world calls that eccentric. Hawke calls it the only life that still makes sense after Vietnam.
The war defines him. Hawke flew helicopters in Vietnam alongside his older brother St. John — and came home without him. His last Army rank was captain; his last certainty died the day his brother went missing in action. Since then, everyone Hawke allows himself to love seems to be taken from him, and he has organized his entire life around never testing that curse again.
Then came Airwolf. As one of the project's test pilots, Hawke was the only man left who could fly the prototype after its creator, Dr. Moffet, stole it and murdered his way to Libya. The F.I.R.M. sent Hawke to bring the Lady home — and he did, at devastating personal cost. Rather than hand her back, he hid her in the desert and set his terms: he flies the missions that matter, and the F.I.R.M. turns over every stone in Southeast Asia until St. John is found. Only then does Airwolf go home.
That bargain is the engine of the entire series. Week after week, Hawke risks the one asset the government cannot replace, for the one person the government cannot find — and somewhere between the cabin, the cello and the gunfire, one of the 1980s' most quietly tragic heroes takes shape.