Still flying

The helicopter blades spin faster and faster, carving a hole in the air as pilot Josh Lang powers up his daily dose of nostalgia.

In less than a minute, the helicopter is airborne, rising quickly above the Paradise Helicopters helipad at Turtle Bay Resort like a giant bee, thrumming with an inorganic buzz.

With its orange, yellow and brown diagonal stripes, the MD 500D is an homage to the 1980s Hawaii-based television series "Magnum, P.I."

One of the most recognizable helicopters in TV history, the "Magnum" MD 500D inspired a generation of pilots and mechanics, including Lang, who fell in love with its nimble flying abilities. It was a symbol of the CBS series for eight seasons, along with the red Ferrari driven by the show’s star, Tom Selleck. The actors even considered it a character. Then, when "Magnum, P.I." ended in 1988, the helicopter vanished as well.

Now cue that familiar theme song: In the last four months, two separately owned "Magnum" replicas — one flown by Paradise Helicopters, the other by Makani Kai Helicopters — have given Oahu skies a retro feel.

For the 40-year-old Lang, flying this helicopter was a fantasy since his childhood days in Maryland. Back on the ground between tours, Lang recalled how his family watched "Magnum, P.I." every week.

"My mom had a crush on Tom Selleck," he said. "My sister had a crush on Tom Selleck. I had a crush on the helicopter."

Pilots consider the MD 500D the sports car of helicopters, according to Lang, a relaxed aviator dressed in jeans, a polo shirt and weathered ball cap.

"It’s fun to fly," he said. "It’s fast and it’s maneuverable."

Even the paint scheme, one of four offered by the manufacturer, has the power to inspire.

"You wouldn’t think orange, yellow and brown would be cool together, but somehow it looks cool," Lang said. "It’s like an Easter egg and that’s cool."

THE CREATORS of "Magnum, P.I." got lucky when they arrived in Hawaii in 1980 and started looking for a helicopter. That’s how Roger E. Mosley, who starred as helicopter pilot T.C., recalls it.

"That unique combination of colors and all really was a stroke of luck," the 74-year-old Mosely said in a call from Los Angeles. "We were just looking for a helicopter when we got there, and it was just there. It stood out."

That model of helicopter, which was known as a Hughes 500 before McDonnell Doug­las bought the company in 1984, has long been praised for its use as a light-utility aircraft. But it was also flown during the Vietnam War, and if you look closely at the "napalm in the morning" scene of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 epic "Apocalypse Now," you’ll see it.

By all accounts, CBS used three of the egg-shaped helicopters over the run of the series. But even before the show premiered in December 1980, the first helicopter was destroyed in a crash that killed a cameramen.

On Nov. 18, 1980, while filming the sixth episode of the first season, the helicopter went down about a mile off Kaa­awa, losing power during a low flight over the ocean. Robert Van Der Kar, a cameraman who was riding along as a double for an actor, was killed.

"The surf was big that day — 15- to 20-footers — and they were coming in fast," pilot Robert Sanders said at the time in an interview with The Hono­lulu Advertiser. "As we went down, a huge wave hit our tail, and all hell broke loose. We went end over end, there was a loud crashing noise, broken glass and plastic was everywhere, debris was flying. It was like some horrible dream. I couldn’t believe it was happening."

After the crash, the show’s producers made do with leftover footage of the aircraft from earlier episodes but also tried to use a different type of helicopter, said Mosley, who can’t remember what kind it was but does recall that fans hated it.

"It was kind of a goofy-looking helicopter," Mosley said. "It just didn’t work. It was like Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. No matter how much you dress up Jerry Lewis, he is still Jerry Lewis. I think they used it for one episode. We painted it and everything. That’s when we found out the helicopter was a character."

Scenes of Selleck and Mosley inside the helicopter as it flew were really shot on the lot of the state’s film studio at Diamond Head. A mock-up of the helicopter was mounted on a platform operated by someone off camera who could make it bank left or right. The cameras were almost always aimed upward at the stars and a background of blue sky. The blades overhead actually spun fast enough to create the illusion of flight, but they did so quietly because they were powered by an electric motor.

Series regular Larry Manetti, who starred as Magnum’s sidekick, Rick, said the helicopter got as much fan mail as he did.

"We made the helicopter like a person," the 65-year-old Manetti said in a call from Los Angeles. "It was a cool thing. I loved it. We all loved it. We sang in it. We sang a Christmas theme once."

The third helicopter used on "Magnum, P.I." also crashed, but that happened after the series had concluded.

On May 13, 1988, the helicopter was being flown by former "Magnum" aerial coordinator Steve Kux, who was transporting equipment and tools for a Hawaiian Electric Co. construction project near Waia­lua.

Witnesses, including a freelance videographer working for HECO, said Kux was trying to make an emergency landing when his MD 500D suddenly flipped sideways and crashed in a 10-foot-deep irrigation ditch.

Kux was pinned, his head partly submerged when — incredibly — HECO lineman Warren "Tiny" Ama­ral lifted the helicopter just high enough to free the pilot. (Doubt Ama­ral’s heroics? Search for the accident on YouTube and see for yourself.)

DECADES passed, and the "Magnum" helicopter became a memory that flew only in syndication.

But early last year the founder of Phoenix Heliparts — a Mesa, Ariz., company that rebuilds helicopters — saw inspiration in an old MD 500D sitting in his hangar.

Darin Cannon, the 46-year-old vice president of Phoenix Heliparts, thought a "Magnum" replica was the perfect way to mark the 10th anniversary of his company. And he knew it would spark interest at the 2013 Heli-Expo, the largest trade show in the industry.

But more than that, Cannon wanted to mark the anniversary with a tribute to the reason he and so many of his friends became enamored of helicopters.

"For myself and many other people growing up in the ’80s, we were all very fond of ‘Magnum, P.I.,’ and for some of us particularly the helicopter," said Cannon, who started working on helicopters as a 10th-grader. "We were fascinated by it."

There was something about that helicopter, the way it dived out of the sky as if it was alive.

"I think everybody falls in love with it," Cannon said. "There is a sex appeal, I think, with just the look of the MD 500D."

The old MD 500D in his hangar had a Hawaii connection, as well. It was once owned by the Hono­lulu Police Department, which flew it for 18 years before making a trade with Phoenix Heliparts for a newer model.

When he got the old police chopper in 2009, Cannon planned to lease it to Paradise Helicopters in Hawaii, but it needed too much work; its time in Hawaii had left it heavily corroded. But after stripping it down to its airframe — which Cannon’s wife, Tina, called a "turkey carcass" — other projects got in the way.

Enter Calvin Dorn, the 57-year-old chief executive officer of Paradise Helicopters, a Hawaii flight tour company. Dorn liked the idea of a refurbished "Magnum" replica, in part because it would make Lang, his pilot, happy. Lang had bugged him to create something like it every year since Dorn joined the company a decade ago.

"That was the show that got him into flying," Dorn said. "It was his dream to come to Hawaii and fly one."

Phoenix Heliparts rebuilt the helicopter using state-of-the-art components and new mechanical parts. About 98 percent of the fuselage was replaced, as well. Then the company contacted the manufacturer and duplicated the paint scheme: International Orange, Sun Yellow and Cocoa Brown.

The company was also able to use the Federal Aviation Administration registration number from the first "Magnum" helicopter, the one that crashed off Kaa­awa: N58243.

Dorn took possession of the "Magnum" replica at the Heli-Expo in March in Las Vegas, where the popularity of the helicopter surprised him. There was a long line of people who wanted to see it, and the unveiling was one of the most talked-about events of the exposition, he said.

"I don’t understand that myself," he said. "I was a helicopter pilot in the Marines when the show was airing, and I was a fan of the show, too, but I didn’t assume that everybody loved ‘Magnum, P.I.’ and the helicopter."

Many of them said the same thing Cannon had said: that the helicopter inspired a career.

"Everybody wanted a picture with it," Dorn said. "I can’t think of anybody who didn’t recognize what it was from. That is pretty amazing."

OVER AT Makani Kai Helicopters near Honolulu Airport, owner Richard Schuman has been flying another "Magnum" replica since March.

It was a pure coincidence, Schuman said, that he and Dorn — who is a good friend — did the same thing at roughly the same time.

Schuman, 55, found his MD 500D last October in Panama, where it was used by a hydroelectric plant. He had the engine overhauled and the silver paint scheme replaced with the "Magnum" colors. But before Schuman started using it for tours, his friend Dorn spotted it from the air.

They had a good laugh about it, Schuman said.

"It was a hush-hush secret thing he was going to announce at Heli-Expo," Schuman said of Dorn’s replica. "He called and said, ‘What is that?’ I said I wanted to bring back this nostalgic ‘Magnum’ helicopter. People our age watched that show, and from a marketing standpoint that is what I wanted to revitalize."

Customers don’t always expect to see a "Magnum" helicopter.

"When they walk out on the tarmac and they see that, they stop in their tracks," Schuman said. "They make an instant connection to a good part of their life. It’s like driving along and hearing a song on the radio from high school, and it prompts a good memory."

THE KICKER to the saga of the "Magnum" helicopters is even better than a perfect replica: Two of the original MD 500D helicopters — including the one that crashed in a Waia­lua ditch — are still flying in Hawaii.

On Maui, AlexAir Helicopters has owned one of them for about 20 years but has flown it since only 2007, after an overhaul, said Jeff Buchwald, director of maintenance for the tour company.

On Kauai, Jim Hobbs, owner of Airborne Aviation, just recently started flying the "Magnum" helicopter that crashed in 1988. He’s leasing it from Kim Mizera, who owns a helicopter company in Calgary, Alberta, called Rilpa Enterprises.

Mizera bought it 10 years ago from a Southern California company that went out of business, but he didn’t get it airborne until 2009, after repairs.

But they’ve lost that retro feeling. Neither one still sports the paint job that made it famous.