Pilot Nick Conlan (Kent Taylor) applies for a job in the State Air Police Force. Known as undisciplined, Nick is warned by Major Smith (Stanley Andrews), the commander, that any infraction of the rules will result in instant dismissal. Nick visits the cafe hangout of the Sky Police, where he encounters waitress Barbara Whitney (Rochelle Hudson), his estranged wife and former stewardess who ignores Nick.
Major Smith and Captain Higgins (Guy Usher) of the State Motor Police are stymied over a series of holdups in their sector. A band of clever crooks seem to have advance information on the movement of large payrolls, bank transfers and jewelry shipments. The secret of their success lies in having access to two locations: the cafe owned by Jerry Petri (Frank Puglia), who has microphones and tape recorders to record pilots, which are sent by carrier pigeon to Dr. Amos Pettingill (Lucien Littlefield), the brains behind the operation and owner of a health spa and pigeon farm.
After each holdup, the robbers, fly to Pettingill's health spa, where they pose as patients. Nick becomes suspicious of the doctor when he lands without orders, at the health spa, spotting several cans of high-test gas.
Nick is fired for disobedience and takes a job flying aircraft for a millionaire sportsman. Meanwhile, Barbara stumbles upon the secret recording room at the cafe and is taken prisoner by Petri. Nick, looking for Barbara at the cafe, discovers the pigeons. Unravelling the secret of the robberies, the major sends his crack pilot, Bill Lambert, (Regis Toomey) to intercept one of the doctor's planes. Nick follows and when Lambert is shot down, Nick calls headquarters and forces the criminal's aircraft down.
With the gang arrested, Nick is reinstated into the Sky Police, and Barbara comes back to him.
Although featuring some aerial action, aviation film historian James H, Farmer in Celluloid Wings: The Impact of Movies on Aviation (1984) dismissed Pirates of the Skies as, "a poor second bill offering for the juvenile crowd.[6] In Stephen Pendo's landmark, Aviation in the Cinema (1985), Pirates of the Skies was just another "low-budget actioneer."[7][N 1]
References
Notes
^Film historian Hugh H. Wynne in The Motion Picture Stunt Pilots and Hollywood's Classic Aviation Movies (1987) noted that Pirates of the Skies was one of a large group of 1930s films where aviation was incidental to the plot, even if the title suggested otherwise.[8]
