Trivia for
Blue Thunder (1983) More at IMDb Pro »

• The television control room shown early in the film is the same control room set seen extensively in The China Syndrome (1979).
  
  
• The helicopter used to portray Blue Thunder was a French-made Gazelle helicopter with bolt-on parts to change its appearance. Most notably the chin cannon assembly was too heavy, necessitating a weight attached to the tail to keep the nose from dipping forward in flight.
  
  
• The film is dedicated to Warren Oates (1928-1982), who played Capt. Jack Braddock and whose final film this was. The text can be seen after the end of the credits: FOR WARREN OATES WITH LOVE FOR ALL THE JOY YOU GAVE US
  
  

• The control stick in the F-16 cockpit is identical to the one from the Viper starfighter cockpit in "Battlestar Galactica" (1978).
  
  
• A defense contractor offered to donate fifty million rounds of live ammunition for use in Blue Thunder's Gatling cannon during certain scenes. John Badham declined the offer.
  
  
• Although the city is Los Angeles and the action centers around the police department, the LAPD is never mentioned. The force is called the "Metropolitan Police," and their badges are silver, of a more generic style, instead of the distinctive LAPD bronze-colored badges depicting old Los Angeles City Hall. However, City Hall does figure prominently in several fly-bys.
  
  
• Frank Murphy drives a 1979 TransAm.
  
  
• As LAPD did not want themselves mentioned, a fictional "Astro Division" designation is used.
  
  
• The filming was done partly by real helicopters, part via radio-controlled flying models, and part by static cockpit with rear projection.
  
  
• The F-16 models were built by famed model builder Gregory Jein (uncredited), who is probably more famous for his science-fiction models for Star Wars (1977), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).
  
  
• The stunt driver who drove the police motorcycle chasing Kate, and later crashed into the car carrier, actually broke his ankle on that attempt.
  
  
• That Casio LCD watch with that "countdown" Murphy uses to "check his sanity" actually belongs to John Badham, the director.
  
  
• One scene was cut after initial test screening: Kate was arriving in downtown, and instead of making a "right" as Murphy hoped, she made a left, and went the wrong way down a one-way street, and she immediately made ANOTHER left into an alley. There was supposed to be a scene were a police car blocked her off in the alley, and she did a James Bond "drive on two wheels" move to get past the police car and get to the TV station. However, audience thought this scene was too "incredible" and it was cut from the movie.
  
  
• In the sequence where Kate had just crashed through the door at the drive-in theater and two police cars spun out, you can see that one of the police cars comes very close to the camera. What you might not know was that a Japanese man, studying under John A. Alonzo (cinematographer), was acting as cameraman, and the police car would have hit him if not for the key grip right behind him. The cameraman was light enough that the key grip, a big burly guy, grabbed the cameraman's waist belt from the back, and yanked him right off his feet, thus saving him from being mowed down.
  
  
• Director Cameo: [John Badham] He's in the video room, the furthest of the three from camera.
  
  
• The first draft of the script had a police helicopter pilot going psycho and terrorizing skies of LA. The script was shot down by the movie studio, as they were afraid that the audience would not identify with a psycho main character. They did like the idea of a helicopter fight over LA though. The rewrite became Blue Thunder.
  
  
• During filming of the "ambush", where Cochrane ambushs Murphy's Blue Thunder at that incomplete skyscraper, the MD-5 Defender (the one Cochrane flew) had an engine failure and had to auto-rotate to a landing below. Fortunately, the parking lot was cleared and the pilot walked away uninjured, and the helicopter was only slightly damaged.
  
  
• All of the vehicles on the streets during the helicopter dogfight among buildings are actually stunt cars driven by stunt drivers. All of the "civilians" gawking at the Arco Towers and ordered away by the SWAT team, were stunt performers as well.
  
  
• Actual chicken was used during the "chicken rain" sequence. Four huge vats of actual barbecue chicken were lifted by crane and released over the police car and three other cars. When the scene was over, homeless people quickly appeared to help the film crew "clean up" the scene (in exchange for the chicken, of course). No rubber chicken was used, according to director, John Badham, because rubber chicken costs 4-10 times the cost of real chicken.
  
  
• At the beginning of the movie, when Murphy and Lymangood first take off (after Murphy asks "all set"), the camera is shooting up at the belly of the police JetRanger. Look closely at the registration number beneath the door. It reads "N2044C". This is the exact aircraft that would became "Santini Air" (the red-white-blue American Flag chopper) about 2 years later in "Airwolf" (1984).
  
  

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