Blue Thunder/Trivia

• Just Plane Wrong: Although the film treats looping a helicopter as aerodynamically impossible, this is not actually the case. It depends more on the performance characteristics of the aircraft in question than an absolute rule of physics.
• Weapons Understudies: The Blue Thunder is actually a modified Aerospatiale Gazelle.
  • Just as a side note, although it is a Gazelle as stated, director John Badham rather humorously repeatedly calls it an Aerospatiale Alouette in the DVD features.
• What Could Have Been: The original concept for the film was something along the lines of Taxi Driver in the air: Murphy was to have been a police helicopter pilot who went on a psychotic rampage through the skies of LA. This gets reused as the cover story for why the police and Air Force want to shoot him down.