Doctor Charles Henry Moffett
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Dr. Charles Henry Moffett (alternate spelling: Moffet) is a fictional character in the tv series Airwolf. He was played by actor David Hemmings.
Moffett is clearly a genius, and just as clearly a sociopath. There are indications in the pilot episode that he has perhaps had run-ins with the American government in the past, but his abilities make him too enticing for the government to pass up. Working for a division of the CIA known as "the Firm" (or F.I.R.M.), Moffett then designs and builds the prototype supersonic attack helicopter known as Airwolf, which carries a price tag of a billion dollars. During Airwolf's development, the project's chief test pilot is Vietnam veteran Stringfellow Hawke, the dark and Byronic star of the series. (Hawke and Moffett never meet on screen until their final showdown; although they must have known each other, any relationship they may have had during Airwolf's development is hidden within the back-story.)
Upon Airwolf's completion, the Firm puts the aircraft--piloted by Moffett himself--through a live-fire exercise to demonstrate its abilities to William Dietz, an important but skeptical U.S. senator who believes the project to be too costly. Upon seeing what Airwolf can do, however, the impressed senator radios his congratulations to Moffett. But Moffett apparently holds a grudge against Dietz for an earlier run-in, and he proceeds to unleash Airwolf's weapons against the control center, killing Dietz, and wounding several Firm agents, including its senior official, Michael Coldsmith Briggs III (known as "Archangel"). Blinded in one eye by the attack, Archangel walks with a cane and a limp for the rest of the series.
Moffett and his crew then fly Airwolf to Libya. The Libyan government caters to Moffett's sadistic desires in exchange for Moffett's use of Airwolf to strike at Libya's enemies. ("There's nothing wrong with a little perversion, Mark," Moffett tells one of his crew at one point, "so long as you don't hurt yourself."). On one occasion Moffett even uses Airwolf to sink an American destroyer with all hands. Discovering that an exotic dancing girl, Gabrielle Ademaur, is actually a Firm agent assigned to locate him, Moffett abandons her in the desert to die. At the same time, Hawke and his friend Dominic Santini have stolen Airwolf from its compound. When Hawke, who is involved with Gabrielle, finds her only to have her die in his arms, he hunts down Moffett across the desert with Airwolf, killing him with Moffett's own invention.
Moffett, however manages to harry the Firm from beyond the grave. Before fleeing to Libya, he destroyed the plans to Airwolf, making the prototype--now in Hawke's hands--one of a kind, and thus forcing the Firm to work with Hawke on the latter's terms in order to have use of the helicopter. Moffett also implanted a software time bomb in Airwolf's computers; when a certain length of time went by without him entering a special code, the computer took over control of the helicopter and sent it on a spree of destruction before Hawke and Santini could erase the software.
Although Moffett's appearances on the program are few, his shadow hovers over the plot for the life of the series.
