Why does the Airwolf series use "photon torpedo"-like missiles?
What wondered me is that they made the effort of Airwolf dodging missiles or using decoys to get rid of them. We see the missile head flying in the background or the missile itself hunting Airwolf. This depiction is at least realistic, the missile looks normal and moves with discernible speed.
But firing them is a whole different story. Every time you see only literally glowing balls of fire with a pow, pow noise when Airwolf or enemy aircraft are launching missiles. This really was a suspension of belief even as child. Were the special effects team simply lazy? I cannot imagine that it would have not be possible to overlay real missile starts with an Airwolf background or use dummy rockets with water and/or dry ice and use blue screen with a moving background. Why those ridiculous plasma balls?
Given that Airwolf had a relatively high budget for a TV series, I do not believe it would have not been possible to set up a more realistic mockup. What are the reasons for the missile start setup and did the SF team at least tried to get it more realistic?
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