Chopper Squad

Preceding Baywatch by over ten years, Chopper Squad was an Australian action/adventure series which featured sun, surf and beachside rescues. Set in Sydney, the series had all the elements that made Baywatch a huge international hit, including sun-kissed bodies and bikini-clad surf rescue team members. But Chopper Squad had one distinct advantage over Baywatch: it had a helicopter! 

A 90-minute pilot episode of Chopper Squad was aired in November 1976. Producer of the pilot, Roger Mirams, was the creator of many children's series including The Magic Boomerang, The Terrible Ten and The Adventures of Seaspray.

Set against the backdrop of Sydney’s northern beaches, Chopper Squad followed the work of a helicopter surf rescue team and filming was location heavy. Tom Greer, the series' publicity director, noted the reliance on external locations, which posed a risk due to unpredictable weather. However, the series would only use two or three internal sets.

The lead characters included Dennis Grosvenor as Jebbie Best, the head of the three-man rescue team; Eric Oldfield as Phil Hardy, the second team member; and Robert Coleby as the helicopter pilot, Barry Drummond. Other main cast members in the pilot included Rebecca Gilling as nurse Georgia Batie, who operated the base radio and was romantically linked to Jebbie, Tony Bonner as Frank, the surf-club captain, and Graham Rouse as Roly, along with Frank’s assistant Tim Lynch, played by Tony Hughes.

From the outset, Chopper Squad was action-packed, with some critics even suggesting there was too much action. The pilot episode featured two main storylines—one involving a stoned hippie disrupting air traffic by hang-gliding over Sydney Airport and another about catching an escaped criminal. These were interwoven with various subplots, including rescues, fire evacuations, and searching for a missing swimmer.

The go-ahead for a full series was given by the production company Ten-10 Sydney before the pilot was aired. However, two days before production was due to start, the show was nearly axed. The Network decided the scripts which had been submitted weren't up to scratch, and Ian Holmes, General Manager of TEN-10, wanted to see 13 complete scripts of an acceptable standard before allowing production to commence. The delay meant that production of the series didn't start until 1977 - just over a year after the pilot episode was made. By that time, Roger Mirams was no longer involved, and the series was now packaged by Reg Grundy Productions.

The series differed from the pilot in a number of respects. Cast changes were made with some characters dropped, being replaced by entirely new ones. Rebecca Gilling's character became a doctor and was recast with Jeanie Drynan in the part. Some characters that were kept were given name changes. Dennis Grosvenor, Robert Coleby and Eric Oldfield retained their original roles, although Phil's surname was changed from Hardy to Traill. New opening titles and theme music were also introduced.

A new helicopter was used for the series—replacing the Airfast chopper from the pilot with the Wales Rescue chopper, a Bell Jet Ranger 2, sponsored by the then Bank of New South Wales. Filming of helicopter scenes was restricted to weekdays, as the helicopter was used for actual rescue work over the weekends. It went into full time service after the series finished and later still, in the mid-1990s was used for tourist flights around Ayers Rock.

The first series of 13 episodes had the team based at Dee Why Surf Club, but for the second series the location was moved to North Palm Beach. There were further cast changes and new characters were introduced in the second series, but this may have been due to actors no longer being available as Dennis Grosvenor hinted at in a TV Eye interview: “There was quite a lapse of time between the first and second series. We just filmed 13 episodes and then they sent us away, and then we came back six or seven months later and started the second series... When we finished the second series nobody bothered to tell us not to come back for a third, they just assumed we’d all drift away. Nobody said, ‘that’s the end of the show’ - that’s the way we were treated." 

Critics noted that the quality of the scripts varied greatly. Some episodes offered thrilling, dramatic rescues, while others felt forced or clichéd, often designed to showcase the helicopter or other aspects of the surf rescue operation.

The stunt work was a standout feature of Chopper Squad. With the nature of the show involving helicopter rescues, there was ample opportunity for daring stunts. Both Dennis Grosvenor and Eric Oldfield insisted on performing many of their own, much to the concern of producer Don Battye, "I have to fight them all the time," he said. "All three want to be heavily involved in their own stunts. I admire their enthusiasm, but I want to see them last to the end of the series."

Paramount Pictures bought the world distribution rights for Chopper Squad, which was sold to 16 countries and proved to be very popular overseas, with great success in Japan and other Asian markets. It was less well received in Australia. It premiered in Melbourne on 6 April, and in Sydney on 14 April 1978. It lasted a little over a month in Melbourne before it was taken off air. It fared slightly better in Sydney, but was still relegated to a non-primetime timeslot before the first series was aired completely.

However, when it was later aired in repeat slots aimed at younger audiences, the series became a hit, attracting better ratings than during its original primetime run. Dennis Grosvenor summed the series up perfectly in his TV Eye interview when he said: "I don’t care that much if people say Chopper Squad was corny. You’ve got to remember that this was 1977, and it wasn’t made for arts graduates or people with degrees in English literature - it was made for kids and young teenagers. And in comparison, to something like Baywatch, which has millions of dollars spent on it, it doesn’t stand up too bad at all."