USA Network picked up the show for a fourth season that was completely recast, with Jan-Michael Vincent having only a minor role in the first episode.

The distinctive musical score was originally orchestral, shifted to more synthesizer-based arrangements early in the second season, and was composed and conducted mainly by Sylvester Levay.

Airwolf was designed by Charles Henry Moffet (David Hemmings)—a genius with a psychopathic taste for torturing and killing women—and built by the Firm, a division of the Central Intelligence Agency (a play on the term "the Company", a nickname for the CIA).

With the assistance of pilot and father figure Dominic Santini (Borgnine), Hawke finds and recovers Airwolf, but Gabrielle is tortured and killed by Moffet.

Hawke refuses to return Airwolf until the Firm can find and recover his brother, St. John (Christopher Connelly), who has been missing in action since the Vietnam War.

Early episodes detail the efforts of the United States government to recover Airwolf from Hawke, who is officially charged with having stolen it.

Because CBS wanted to make the series more family-oriented, the program was transformed during season two into a more light-hearted show, with Hawke and Santini portrayed as cooperative partners with the Firm.

[4] To improve ratings, the studio wanted to add a regular female character and jettison the dark and moody tales of international espionage.

This was accomplished at the start of the second season with the addition of Caitlin O'Shannessy (Jean Bruce Scott) and new stories that were domestic and more action oriented.

Bellisario's then-wife, Deborah Pratt, also left at that time (she was nearly three months pregnant with their daughter, Troian, as Season 2 drew to a close).

The original cast was written out of the fourth season: Jan-Michael Vincent appears in a first transitional episode; a body double for Ernest Borgnine seen only from the back represented Santini, who was killed off in an explosion; Archangel was said to have suddenly been assigned overseas.

Stringfellow's brother-in-law St. John Hawke, (now played by Barry Van Dyke), was suddenly revealed to be alive, having been working for many years as a deep undercover agent for American intelligence, contradicting characterizations in the previous three seasons.

Actress Michele Scarabelli, who played Jo Santini, said in a Starlog magazine interview that all 24 scripts were in place before the cast arrived, leaving the actors little room to develop their characters.

[8] Andrew Probert designed the Airwolf uniform insignia patch worn by the flight crew members, a snarling bat-winged wolf's head wearing a sheepskin.

The 73-minute soundtrack was created over a five-year period by a fan, Northern Ireland-based graphic designer Mark J. Cairns, in collaboration with original composer Levay, with a foreword by the series' creator, Bellisario.

[9] A graphic novel was published in August 2015, titled Airwolf Airstrikes, which recasts Archangel as a woman, and Dominic Santini's son, who is black.

Fabulous Films have released an all-new, High Definition Series 1–3 Blu-ray (Region B) box-set for the UK market during April 2014.