During the first scene the admiral comments that "Gen. McCartney" has called him at home and has said that he wants the present case not to become anything like the "fiasco" with Kelly Flinn in the Air Force. 1Lt. Kelly Flinn was the first woman B-52 pilot in the USAF, who resigned in 1997 and received a general discharge, rather than an honorable one, under similar circumstances. She had taken part in an adulterous affair with a civilian man who was the husband of an enlisted woman below her in the chain of command.
When Rep. Bobbi Latham (Anne-Marie Johnson) first meets Harm on the tarmac after getting off the helicopter, she says that her colleague, Congresswoman DeLong, warned her about him. Anne-Marie Johnson had previously played on the series In the Heat of the Night from 1988-1993 with Denise Nicholas, who played the character of Councilwoman Harriet DeLong.
The Marine captain giving the briefing for the exercise warns the pilots that "Smokey Sam's" would be fired in their flight path. A GTR-18 Smokey Sam is a small, unguided rocket developed by the Naval Air Warfare Center's weapons division to simulate a surface-to-air missile (SAM) being fired during training exercises. The rocket is constructed from phenolic paper (the type of paper used for printed circuit boards) and Styrofoam, so in the event that it hits an aircraft during an exercise it causes very little to no damage. The Smokey uses the same kind of motor as most model rockets do, it emits a distinctive white plume when launched (hence the name) which simulates the exhaust plume of a typical surface-to-air missile when launched to make it look as realistic as possible.
The Bell AH-1 Cobra is a single-engine attack helicopter developed by Bell, the same company that makes the Huey. A single-engine, twin-seated rotorcraft the Cobra's cockpit differs some from most two-seated aircraft, unlike most the mission commander/pilot sits in the rear seat and the gunner in the forward seat, though both seats have flight controls, the cockpit is also armored with steel plating in the deck and around the seats. The Cobra is a dedicated attack helicopter originally designed to be an escort for transport helicopters, featuring stub wings for weapon mounts and a chin-mounted gun turret; the chin turret could mount a 7.62mm Gatling gun and a M129 40mm grenade launcher, the wing stubs carried the M158 rocket launcher loaded with 7x70mm rockets and either a 7.62mm minigun or XM195 20mm cannon. The Cobra first entered military service with the United States Army in 1967 and the Marine Corps the following year, the Marines primarily used it to provide air support to ground troops. In the 1990's the US military began replacing the Cobra with the faster and more capable Boeing AH-64 Apache, the Cobra was retired from service in the US by 2001, with a lot of the retired Cobras being sold to Israel, Japan and Turkey.