AIRWOLF: The Location of Hawke's Cabin
Because you've always wondered...
14/11/06
The long-running mystery (for many, anyway) of the location of Hawke's cabin has (probably) been solved!
Thanks to a post by Roy Nelson on the airwolf.org forum "Eagle Lake" has been revealed as Lake Hemet in California. He also revealed that the cabin itself didn't exist other than on a sound stage, and that the dock where the helicopters landed was built for the show and dismantled at the end.
I took the liberty of scouring the lake in Google Earth for the precise location, and my best guess is 33°40'11.98"N 116°41'38.37"W (Google Earth co-ordinates).
Lake Hemet is a reservoir, dammed at the south west end, and as such has seen considerable changes in water level since the show was filmed. This view is a general view down the lake at roughly the angle we commonly see helicopters arriving from, and showing where I think the dock was located. The characteristic embayments on the shore have been lost in the immediate vicinity due to lowering of the water level in the Google Earth views.
By interpolating past water levels from the "tide-mark" contours visible on the shore (trust me, I'm a lapsed Geologist), it's possible to lift the water level a few feet to match that seen in Airwolf. The dark blue overlay shows an approximate shoreline.
Skewing this water level down to nearly ground level, and bearing in mind that Google Earth isn't precisely detailed at high resolutions, the result looks like this, which is pretty close to the shoreline seen in the show (below).
The Google Earth images were fortunately captured in similar lighting conditions to scenes in the Pilot episode - the key landscape feature is the range of small valley depressions on the distant horizon (although other angles seen in the Pilot can also be matched quite well to this location).
Case closed? Well, it satisfies my curiosity, although it's a shame that the shoreline seems to have changed so dramatically since Airwolf was filmed. The number of rumours that surfaced about where the cabin was, who owned it, almost warrant research in their own right, but at least now we know!
The location appears to be reasonably well accessible via Hemet Lake Road off Highway 74 so maybe someone could pop round and get some location shots for us!
How the dock might look if it were still there today.
Update 08/09/07
More up to date Google Earth images show that Lake Hemet's level has risen back towards the levels shown in the show (it may be seasonal - I'm not exactly local!), so here's a rough match using the current images.
With thanks to MattyB (Matt Burrell), a member of the Airwolf.org forum, who has recently visited the site, these matching shots show the location as it is in 2007.
The water level is still lower than that seen in Airwolf, and it looks like a number of the taller trees have fallen in the intervening years.
Matt's Airwolf location trip can be can be seen in full here, as part of his www.airwolfmovies.com site.
Nice to see it's looking more like 'our' lake again!
Some other Google Earth Airwolf locations
Some other Google Earth locations:
Cabin Dock: 33°40'11.98"N 116°41'38.37"W
Khadaffi's Palace: 34°24'17.68"N 119°32'48.57"W
FIRM Knightsbridge: 34°9'21.98"N 118°49'7.96"W
Santini Air Hangar: 34°12'54.92"N 118°29'15.44"W
Jetcopters current hangar: 34°11'52.23"N 118°29'26.88"W
The Lair (cave entrance): 36°54'37.19"N 110°4'34.27"W
The Lair (chimney entrance): 36°55'39.27"N 110°4'41.01"W
Red Star Control / Horn's Hideout: 34°29'9.41"N 118°18'46.95"W
Universal Studios Airwolf Sound-Stage: 34°8'33.57"N 118°21'20.47"W
For fan reports of various Airwolf locations, try these "Trip" journals:
MattyB's Filming Location Trip
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Last modified: 11 April 2018 13:47:07.