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Airborne Mook
aka: Airborne Mooks

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Get a taste of your own medicine, Mario.
Finn: They fly now?!
Poe: They fly now.

Simply put, a Mook that flies, floats, or hovers, due to either having wings, a propulsion system, or supernatural powers. They like to stay out of the player's reach, and will attack from their advantageous position. Furthermore, due to their freedom in the air, they tend to dodge rather well.

Because of this, they are often used as Goddamned Bats, relatively weak enemies that use their speed and agility to harass the player until they go down, especially in games where your character has Denial of Diagonal Attack or takes Knockback (see Ledge Bats for this case). Can be a type of Kung Fu-Proof Mook if they're especially hard to hit normally.

These guys usually tend to do one of the following:

Airborne Mooks in platform games, usually those that try to knock the player over, are considered a huge annoyance, especially if they're the kind whose sole purpose is to knock the player into a Bottomless Pit. However, if you can Goomba Springboard off of them they can be used to cross Bottomless Pits.

Airborne Mooks in FPS or action games may be smart enough to strafe around the player, making them harder to hit. Other than that, they use the same strategies above.

RPG games will tend to have these guys as high-speed and with low hit points. They'll usually be a pain in the ass to hit, but easy to take out. In the case where they do have high Hit Points and a high evade rate (and maybe some very damaging attacks), you're fighting a Demonic Spider.

If these things appear in a Tower Defence game (especially those where you have to divert the mooks' path), they'll usually have the ability to take a short cut and fly over your towers to their goal. Certain types of towers will not work on them either.

Your best bet against an Airborne Mook is, obviously, to use an Anti-Air attack against them, as they'll usually be weak to it or are unable to avoid it. If such attacks are not available, then a ranged attack will do. In certain cases, it may also be possible to remove their wings with specific attacks, turning these mooks into ground-bound versions of themselves.


Examples

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    Action-Adventure 
  • Alan Wake had the Taken Crows, which were obviously extremely weak, but attacked in whole swarms to compensate. Alan Wake's American Nightmare had replaced them with Taken that could temporarily turn themselves into a swarm of crows.
  • American McGee's Alice:
    • The original game has only the insectoid Bolterlfies as its flying mooks. Its sequel Alice: Madness Returns has much greater variety. Besides Bolterfly-like enemies, there are also the Drifting Ruins, which fire shots that crystallize into spikes when they hit the ground, and the Bitch Babies, which literally vomit acid down you and can have it reflected right back at them.
    • Madness Returns also had the Samurai Wasps: an entire class of Airborne Mooks with regular katana Wasps, the ranged archer Wasps and the elite Naginata-wielding Daimyo Wasps. There was also originally supposed to be a Wasp Queen as a level’s boss, but time constraints had forced it to be removed alongside the bosses of all other levels besides the the last one.
  • ANNO: Mutationem: There are various Attack Drones that attack from afar, or conducting a self-destruct attack when in proximity. There's including Spinal Horseflies that disperse a toxin from its mouth.
  • Bionic Commando: The helicopter-pack soldiers.
  • Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2: The Harpies fly around and attack the protagonist with spears. His Finishing Move on them has them impaled on their own weapon.
  • One of the enemy types in Cryostasis: Sleep Of Reason has grown large, moth-like wings and strafes around a lot, making them hard to hit.
  • Devil May Cry generally has one or more of those per game.
    • Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening has the feminine Fallen Angels, which shield themselves from attacks with their white wings. They have to have them shattered while in flight to bring them down to the ground, then defeated before having time to regenerate them.
    • Of note are the Bianco Angelos and Alto Angelos (White Angels and High Angels in Broken Italian) in Devil May Cry 4, which combined this trope with Shield-Bearing Mook: their wings could also fold together as a shield.
  • Fester's Quest: The floating eyeballs and Beholders on the spaceship.
  • Goblet Grotto had the “mosquitoes” (which looked like football-sized cross between mosquito and a fly) and the 1.5 meter tall albatrosses, which attacked with the two daggers they held in their paws.
  • Harry Potter:
    • Plenty of those in the earlier games. There are pixies, which strafe around and throw magical projectiles, Billywigs (effectively just very large flying mosquitoes), small Books That Bite that ambush you from certain bookshelves (as opposed to large ones that shoot spells and act like mini-bosses) and more.
    • The third PS2 game had flying torches and self-moving fireballs, only around in the Hermione levels, as she was the only one who had the freezing spell needed to deal with them.
  • Killer is Dead had the Wire drones, which would fly around and pepper you with gunfire while you’re busy fighting regular Wires on the ground. They’re more of a nuisance due to protagonist being Made of Iron, however, and are quickly shot down with his Arm Cannon.
  • The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon: Grublin flies have a pair of insect wings that allow them to follow Spyro and Cynder in the air, although unlike them they can't gain much altitude. Wyverns later appear as stronger airborne opponents.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • The Legend of Zelda: The game marked the debut of Peahats, which hover in the air with the flower-like petals above their heads and tend to move from one spot to another in a straight line. Peahats have since appeared in later games in the series, usually having a more flexible movement as well as higher endurance.
    • Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, being much more of a platform game than other games in the series, has several. Bubbles bounce around the screen in diagonals and take a ton of hits to kill. Aches and Achemen are bats that swoop down from the ceiling, Achemen turn into a demon when they land and spit fireballs. Mobys are a bird that swoops down out of the sky and beelines at Link once they reach his height. Bago Bagos are a skeletal monster head that take soaring leaps across the screen while spitting stones. Ras are the animated dragon head statues and the Ledge Bats of the game. Moas are flying ghostly eyeballs — the orange ones in palaces try to drop fireballs on Link, the outdoor types just try to fly into him. Girobokkus are a slower moving, armored floating eye that are invincible when their eyes are closed. Boons are fast moving dragonflies that rain rocks down beneath them, luckily they're fragile because they're very hard to hit.
    • In The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, the Mothula enemies come in winged and wingless varieties. The winged Mothulas can have their wings shot off with ranged weapons such as the hookshot, the arrows or the boomerang, bringing them to the ground.
    • Flying variants of the octopus-like Octoroks appear from time to time. Sky Octoroks appear in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The ones in the former fly through leaves attached to their tops, which they spin like propellers and spit rocks at Link when they spot him. The ones in the latter game are instead Living Gasbags that fly thanks to inflated mantles, but can't spit rocks.note  The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening also features Winged Octoroks that dodge Link's attacks by fluttering out of the way.
    • The Lizalfos enemies have winged relatives, the Aeralfos (from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes), that attack Link from the air with strafing attacks.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has Guardian Skywatchers, flying variants of the Guardians that have the same deadly firepower as their Stalker cousins, but with the advantage of being airborne.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has Moth Gibdos, flying variants of the Gibdos that spawn from Gibdo hives and spit acid at Link. The same game also introduces Aerocudas, flying wyvern-like creatures that carry their fellow Ganon minions into battle, as well as various objects to drop on Link, such as Bomb Barrels and Snowballs.
  • Lollipop Chainsaw had the magical flying zombies later in the game.
  • Machine Hunter has winged alien soldiers in the rooftop and asteroid levels.
  • Madagascar:
    • The first film's game on Game Boy Advance has the city pigeons suicidal enough to attack a lion.
    • Madagascar 2 Escape To Africa's tie-in game has the vultures, which are a One-Hit-Point Wonder and easy to deal with, if not the fact they often attack just as you begin balancing on ledges and can cause you to fall off.
  • Neopets: The Darkest Faerie had the ranged Minion Archers and melee Minion Grunts.
  • Ninja Gaiden: The goddamned birds cause heavy damage, if not knock the player into a pit.
  • Ninja: Shadow of Darkness have those pesky gargoyle mooks that attacks you en masse in the mountains.
  • Psychonauts 2: One of the new mental world enemies introduced are Regrets, ugly bug-like creatures that try to drop heavy weights on Raz. Luckily they're vulnerable to you steal
  • Serious annoyance in Onimusha due to melee-oriented combat meaning a limited number of ranged attack options. This is especially true in Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams where, unless you're playing as Ohatsu who uses guns, you'll have problem to deal with them, as bow is no longer available. Mages are the worst, as they constanly float out of your range while casting curses on you. The most reliable way is to use Lv2/3 charged Light magic attack.
  • Remember Me: The AV-48S Seraphim security robots fly safely beyond the reach of your melee attacks and fire energy projectiles. They’re also protected with shields most of the time, forcing you to time the long-range Spammer shots to when they lower it to get it recharged. Luckily, they’re also Glass Cannon|s and are destroyed with just two Junk Shots.
  • Shrek the Third: The Dragonlings in the tie-in game. Subverted in that most of them still fly low enough to be within reach of Shrek’s fists or Arthur’s sword. An elite white dragonling doesn’t make that mistake, however, and will only come down right before attacking.
  • Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine had the Chaos Plague Drones, which were powered by a bound Nurgle demon and equipped with machine guns.

    Action RPGs 
  • The alien drones in The Bureau: XCOM Declassified. They will frequently strafe around and either heal their allies on the ground or levitate you or the squadmates off the ground with the short-range beam, allowing other aliens to pump you full of plasma.
  • The Giant Mosquitoes in the Blighttown swamp in Dark Souls. Hard to hit, annoying things. They're easily killed by the even the weakest of attacks but here is the kicker; They endlessly respawn.
  • Kingdom Hearts had plenty of those. One of its traditions has been that mage enemies (whether Heartless or Unversed) are hovering sphere-like enemies that cast from their chosen element and have two part names. First part is their colour, second is either type of song (Heartless) or a spice (Unversed).
  • Vespoids in the Monster Hunter series. They are essentially giant wasps that hover just out of reach of many of the game's weapons, before darting in, jabbing you with a stinger, and retreating. Couple this with the fact that the stinger can inflict paralysis on you, and will seemingly always do this when you're low on health/fighting a boss level enemy, and you will soon come to hate them. Also, they nearly always shatter when you DO kill them, leaving absolutely nothing to loot, making the whole exercise of killing them completely pointless (fortunately, Poison works fine if you need a body to carve). The fact that the developers have included quests based entirely on slaying large numbers of these things (an early quest has you slay 20. At this point in the game, it takes 3-5 hits to kill one of the things!) also accentuates the utter irritation they bring. However, at least they spawn almost infinitely in certain places, so you don't have to go looking everywhere for them.
  • NieR had robotic drones which attacked you with lightning and some sort of magic bullets.
  • Tokyo Jungle at first simply has pigeons and crows as little more than tiny snacks for predators. Eventually, however, prehistoric animals will begin to re-evolve. This includes Archaeopteryx Meganeura, which are still not too dangerous. The same cannot be said about Pteranodon.
  • Turgor had the crow-like monsters appear when you’ve used up too much Color in a given area. What made them really dangerous was the fact they seldom flew freely. Instead, they pretended to be regular sprigs of Color, only revealing themselves when you’ve uprooted them.

    Action — Top Down 
  • Full Metal Furies has the various drones, who generally use shock attacks.
  • Grid Warrior has several, usually of the Wind element. Most attacks cannot target them while they're airborne, except for lightning and ice weapons, Holy Bullets and the Flak Cannon (which does extra damage to them). Most of them have to fly low to attack the player, allowing a player without those weapons to harm them.
  • Mystic Towers had one of these in each tower. There’s a flying fungus named Fungafly, a so-called Bagfly, bird called Monobeak, jellyfish-like Stinger, Snapdragons and Verdragons, etc. There were usually slightly weaker than the land-bound enemies, but also faster and couldn't be avoided by levitating away from them.

    Beat 'Em Ups 
  • Lucifer Ring have gargoyles, giant eagles, weevils and oversized insects as recurring foes. They have a habit of showing up in places with platforming elements making you fall and suffer damage in the process.
  • The Ninja Warriors Again: The remake has Attack Drones as flying enemies, which fly high and lower themselves a bit to fire a salvo of rockets diagonally at the player character. Fortunately for your robot ninjas, these drones are also extremely fragile, taking one hit to destroy.

    First Person Shooter 
  • Area 51 (FPS) has the translucent, spherical aliens that floated in the air.
  • BioShock:
    • BioShock and BioShock 2 had the security drones, which flew around thanks to having helicopter rotors, had either machine guns or rocket launchers were activated if you stayed too long in front of the security cameras on some levels. However, they became your allies if you managed to hack the security cameras, and BioShock 2 allowed Delta to have the drone itself with a Hacking Dart.
    • Bioshock Infinite: The Mosquitoes will attack you on sight and have a chaingun instead of regular machine gun, but are otherwise the same. Friendly ones could also be summoned by Elizabeth from other dimensions throught the use of Tears.
  • Borderlands:
    • Borderlands: The Rakk, which were hard to hit in the air due to their attack patterns, but could be comfortably killed with shotguns once they dived down to attack you.
    • Borderlands 2:
      • Hyperion Surveyor drones, whose main purpose is to repair the Loaders on the ground and occasionally hit back at you with weak electrical attacks.
      • JET Loader, which is effectively a basic GUN Loader capable of temporarily transforming into a jet and attacking from the air. They aren't much of a challenge... but the same can't be said about the miniature version that comes out of some ammo chests. Its reduced health was more than offset by always having shielding and being much harder to hit.
  • Deep Rock Galactic: The macteras are winged bugs that will either shoot you with pointy projectiles (the mactera spawns), spit globs of sticky goo or cover the map with said goo (the mactera bombers), or downright grab the player and transport them randomly around the map before dropping them after a certain amount of time, or when a fellow player shoots the damn thing. It should be noted these are playing the trope perfectly by having the spawns be able to perform some very efficient evasive manouvers when targeted. The fact the grabber has a tendency to move the captured dwarf in front of other enemies, or drop them from the highest possible point of the map can easily infuriate players against it.
  • Doom:
    • Cacodemons are floating, cyclopean masses of flesh that shoot projectiles and can take a fair amount of damage before being defeated.
    • Lost Souls are floating skulls in flames that attack Doomguy by dashing towards him.
  • Doom II: Pain Elementals are brown-colored floating demons that spawn Lost Souls. When defeated, they split into more Lost Souls.
  • Halo has the jump/jet-packing Elite Rangers and Brute Jumpers, as well as the robotic Sentinels and insectoid Drones. Halo 4 adds Ranger variants of the Jackals and Grunts.
  • Half-Life 2 has the Manhacks, small drones deployed by Overwatch, whose only function is to close the distance and cut you up while they're shooting at you. There are also the Combine Choppers and Gunships, although these are either bosses or Boss in Mook Clothing.
  • Metroid:
    • Metroid: Memus, Geegas, Wavers, Mellows, Reos, Rippers, Ripper I Is, Mellas, Gamets, Gerutas, Zebbos, Holtz, Multiviolas, Rinkas... flying enemies come in a wider variety than any other type.
    • Metroid Prime:
      • War Wasps are small, agile targets that dart around and shoot stingers, with the Hive Mecha spawning a variant that instead rams into you. Diligent use of locking onto them will let you quickly dispatch each wasp with a few Power Beam shots, and a Missile to their hive will stop them from spawning until the room reloads.
      • Once you reach the uppermost part of the Space Pirates' base in Phendrana Drifts, you'll meet Space Pirates that are equipped with jetpacks. They'll shoot missiles down at you, and if defeated without freezing or incinerating them, they'll attempt to divebomb you before exploding. After their initial encounter, jetpack Space Pirates become uncommon enemies.
  • Serious Sam: The Harpies from the first game, and the Flying Kleers, Floaters, Hellchicks, and Levitators from Serious Sam II. They all possess projectile attacks, whether they be fireballs (Flying Kleers), energy projectiles (Harpies, Floaters, Levitators) or bats (Hellchicks).
  • Star Wars: Dark Forces has the Imperial probes much like in the films, which flew around and attacked with electric shocks. There also were the Dark Troopers, which spent most of their time in the air due to having jet packs, were tough to kill and were always equipped with heavy weapons.
  • System Shock had certain unlucky members of the crew mutated by SHODAN into some sort of a completely transparent flying ray. Besides being agile and difficult to spot, these also spat acid.
  • You Are Empty: The Electricians are zombies with helicopter-like blades on their back that fly dive down and attack you with their arc welders.

    Light Gun Game 
  • Aliens: Extermination and Aliens: Armageddon both contains flying alien monsters, including winged chestbursters, facehuggers, and alien drones with bat-like wings.
  • Project: Horned Owl has robots on jet thrusters that assault the heroes in outdoor environments, plenty which shows up in the rooftop stages.
  • The final stage of the Time Crisis spinoff, Crisis Zone, contains mooks on jetpacks, which pursues you while you're pursuing their boss on a speedboat.

    Platform Games 
  • Alien Hominid has helicopters and jetpack guys, both of which can take a lot of damage.
  • Alien Soldier:
    • The game starts off with the bugs that fly around in circles if you get close, fire a few shots and explode. Ranger and Homing traits counter them though.
    • It also has bomb-dropping birds. These get an advantage in the more claustrophobic areas, where the walls can shield them.
    • One part of the game features drones that travel in long lines and explode into suicide bullets. Thankfully, Bullet Catch ability turns those into health.
  • Arcuz, by Armor Games, has Hornets, which can only be hit mid-jump. Same goes for the bats in the sequel.
  • Axiom Verge has the fly-like enemies who dive down on the player, then retreat away from their line of fire, before coming back for another go.
  • Bug also had at least one in each level, and they were usually very annoying to defeat.
  • Castlevania:
    • The most infamous across the series are the dreaded Medusa Heads, such as in Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance. They don't usually turn you to stone, but they do fly in a sine wave when you're on platforms. If the platforms are moving, or the ones who do turn you to stone show up, or god-forbid both at the same time, they become Demonic Spiders rather quickly.
      The Angry Video Game Nerd: These games gave me so much stress as a kid, I developed a psychological complex: whenever I see wavy lines, I get fuckin' pissed.
    • Harpies tend to show up in the clock tower stages, who love to hover above you and divebomb. Since the clock tower tends to involve lots of spinning gears, spikes, moving platforms, and yes the blasted Medusa Heads, it tends to make for a frantic and desperate time.
    • Various flying demon enemies that cast magic begin popping up in later installments as well. If you don't have an aerial attack like the trusty axe subweapon they become a very serious pain in the ass, such as Earth Demon of Castlevania: Circle of the Moon whose spell affects the ground the player's on.
  • Chasm features several varieties of ghosts, giant wasps, Imps who attack the player with hammers, and the dragonling creatures who spit out a Spread Shot of fireballs.
  • Commander Keen 4 has Skypests. Can't shoot them, can only crush them with your pogo stick when they land.
  • Death's Gambit: You'll often encounter floating crystals that pulse shockwaves around themselves. Garde Tum has drones that fire actual lasers. There are also semi-examples, like the ghostly cultists who merely lack legs and so float off the ground instead, and the Aldwynn Ascended, whose powers allow them to briefly sprout wings and fly up high, only to dive down for a devastating attack.
  • Diseviled features the Demon Bats, and their tougher cousins, the Demon Flyers. They will fly around the general area, before swooping towards the hero. Fireballs make short work of them, with only one hit needed before they fall.
  • Distorted Travesty 3 is filled with these, everything from Castlevania's Gorgon Heads, to Mario's Lakitus. Among the first such enemies to appear are these bomb-dropping helicopter bots.
  • Donkey Kong:
    • Donkey Kong Country: The debut of the vulture enemy, the Necky, who serves as the Vile Vulture of the Kremling Krew. Neckies simply fly around, trying to get in the Kongs' way. There are also smaller versions called Mini-Neckies, that hover in place while spitting projectiles. Finally, there are grounded Neckies that stand in one spot and throw nuts around. Master Necky is a very large Necky who serves as a boss in Monkey Mines, and a re-colored version, Master Necky Snr, is the boss of Chimp Caverns.
    • Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest:
      • Zingers hover in place or patrol a set area. As an airborne Spiny, they can't be stomped by the Kongs alone, and can only be defeated with thrown objects, strong Animal Friends, or exclamation-point barrels.
      • Flitters are large dragonflies that have similar behaviors to Zingers (hovering, patrolling, or moving in one direction), but unlike Zingers, these can be stomped on by the Kongs.
      • Mini-Neckies float onscreen for a moment before divebombing the Kongs' location.
      • Kloaks float in place and throws objects and/or enemies, such as crates, Click-Clacks, and Spinies.
    • Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!: Knik-Knaks are beetle-like enemies, of which only the red ones are seen flying (yellow ones remain in the ground), and remain static in one spot.
    • Donkey Kong Country Returns: Tiki Buzzes are drum-like Tikis that are winged and stay airborne without actively attacking the Kongs, though their fiery variants, Flaming Tiki Buzzes, do expel fireballs onto them.
    • Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze: Hootzes are owl-like creatures that are part of the Snowmad tribe, and either remain static in an aerial spot or move in a certain patter (back and forth in a straight line or around a circle). Like Tiki Buzzes, they can come in fiery variants, the Hot Hootzes, who expel fireballs onto the Kongs, and the Blue Hootzes, who hover in place while engulfed in blue fire.
  • Eternal Daughter had many of those, including extremely fast bats and the circle-flying jungle parrots. The jungle also had continuously falling leaves, which had pygmies on them. Cute as it was, a collision with them inflicted a sizeable amount of damage.
  • Garden Gnome Carnage: Sleighs. They float, and some of them drop gift-clad parachuting elves on you, but on the other hand, they can be helpful as they explode like a brick when they hit the ground, likely taking out some elves in the process. In the Garden Gnome Carnage spin-off Hyper Princess Pitch, they return. They shoot projectiles at you, and some of them only fly by, leaving you only short time to kill them, while others stay around and you have to destroy them.
  • Gunstar Heroes has jetpack soldiers that drop bombs in Orange's stage.
  • Hollow Knight: Some of the sentries in the City of Tears are winged, allowing them to patrol its airspace and attack the Knight from above; the ones with swords swoop down to swipe at the plaeyer before retreating, while the ones with lances throw their weapons and divebomb you. Most are located in the outdoor areas of the City of Tears, where they can take advantage of the open space to manouver and stay out of the Knight's melee range between attacks.
  • Journey to Silius has various robotic bats, hovering Xenomorph-like bots, and the "HumpBot".
  • Iji had the Skysmasher drones in its last level. Not only did their flying pattern make them hard to hit normally, but they also did something no other enemy could — their Shocksplinter projectile was fired alongside the ground. Thus, the ducking move, normally foolproof against explosive projectiles, was 100% useless.
  • Magical Whip: Wizards of Phantasmal Forest has bats, ghosts, jack-o'-lanterns, and dangling spiders. In fact, only knights and slimes are earthbound. It's a good thing some levels have infinite midair jump power-ups hidden in them!
  • Mega Man (Classic) has many Mecha-Mooks that could fly. These include Pipi, a robotic bird from Mega Man 2 carrying an egg which it drops. If the egg hits the ground, it breaks into eight or so Copipis, which then fly at Mega Man. Especially annoying are the various Wily Bots, such as Up'n'Downs, Mizzles, and Shururuns that live in Bottomless Pits which pop out from them as you jump over, knocking you backwards and into the pit. The series' Mascot Mooks, Mets, have helicopter-propelled variants of the Met DXes in Needle Man's Stage Revisited from Mega Man 3, Heli Mets, which are encountered in Junk Man's Stage from Mega Man 7, and Neo Heli Mets from Mega Man 10.
  • Mercenary Kings had several airborne robot enemies. Some are rather weak and more of an annoyance, (Flyer, Ghost) but the Bomber and the Copter Turret are both very powerful.
  • Metal Slug has the dangerously annoying helicopters and missile aircrafts.
  • Ninja Senki features one in every level group. The ghosts in sections 1 & 2, Purple Flames (these fly high and drop small flames onto the ground) at sections 3 & 4, demon heads going in circles around you on sections 5 & 6, etc., etc.
  • Pizza Vs. Skeletons: Introduced in Level 1-6 are little winged skeletons that dive bomb at the pizza.
  • There are multiple varieties of these in Salt and Sanctuary.
  • web-based Shadowless features classical randomly flying bats.
  • Smurf: Rescue In Gargamel's Castle has hawks and bats that you must avoid, since you cannot destroy them.
  • Snailiad has, among others, the Sky Viper, Chirpy, Batty Bat, and Ghost Dandelion.
  • The Sonic the Hedgehog series has quite a few aerial Badniks, like the Buzz Bombers and Buzzers. They tend to fly within Sonic's attack range, though, and most are rather easily dispatched.
  • Spyro the Dragon:
    • Copter Gnorcs fly by means of harnesses with large helicopter blades.
    • Gnorc Balloonists float by means of holding on to large balloons. The only way to defeat them is to pop their balloons when they dip down to attack, sending them plunging into the bottomless pits they hover over.
    • Plane Gnorcs fly around on big diesely airplanes.
    • In Spyro: A Hero's Tail, Birdmem are skinny gnorcs who fly with leather wings strapped to their arms and mostly exist as obstacles in certain platforming sections, while Balloon-a-rang Gnorcs float with balloons tied to their backs and must have their boomerangs reflected back at them to pop their balloons and send them falling to their doom.
  • Super Mario Bros.: The games have several:
    • Super Mario Bros. introduces Lakitu (which flies on clouds out of normal range and drop Spinies onto the player) and Koopa Paratroopas (flying versions of the usual Koopas; they lose their wings and fall to earth if Mario jumps on them, becoming regular Koopa Troopas).
    • In Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, Bloopers move and behave exactly the same on air as they do underwater (quick ascent, low descent; they only sidestep during the brief moment they move up). The good news is that Mario can stomp on them on the air.
    • In Super Mario Bros. 2, Albatosses slowly fly through a horizontal line (almost always to the left, but the ones appearing at the start of World 6-2 soar to the right), while the Beezos fly faster (to the point that characters can only stand over them for a brief moment). Pidgits use carpets to fly in an oscillating pattern until they aim at the player's character to harm them (in Super Mario World, they replace Bullet Bills upon completion of the Special World and can fly just fine without a carpet).
    • Super Mario Bros. 3: Paragoombas are winged versions of the Goombas, another common type of Mook. Yellow ones fly high overhead to avoid Mario's attacks, while dropping Micro-Goombas that stick onto Mario and weigh him down. They also lose their wings when jumped on.
    • Super Mario World introduces Parabombs, which are Bob-ombs falling onto the floor with a parachute. Also, in the Forest of Illusion, some enemies such as Galoombas and Bob-ombs themselves that are otherwise ground-based travel encased in floating bubbles.
    • Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island introduces Fly Guys, which fly almost steadily in many levels (though some hold valuable red coins and are sadistic enough to fly away from the screen shortly afterwards, preventing you from getting those coins unless you replay the level from the start). Toadies are also introduced, and they're the ones who will take away Baby Mario if he hovers around the level for too long.
    • Super Mario 64 has both the Fly Guys and the debuting Snufit (a ghostly subspecies of the Snifits). Famously, Klepto the Condor flies in some levels and will take away Mario's hat if he's given the chance to.
    • Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 have Cluckbooms, chicken-like mooks that drop bombs on Mario or Luigi. The moving sand's currents makes them harder to deal with (even when you bring them down with Star Bits).
    • Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World has Para-Biddybuds, which typically fly in groups and with a joint pattern, as well as Stingbies, a bee enemy that chases Mario and/or Luigi if they spot them, though they are limited by the heights in their flights. 3D World also introduces Parabones (Dry Bones with wings), which are also present in Super Mario Odyssey.
    • Super Mario Maker and its sequel has Para-anything. Any enemy in the game can have wings if you wish so. Including Bowser himself.
    • Super Mario Odyssey introduces the Urban Stingbies, which are mosquito variants of the usual Stingbies found in Metro Kingdom and a part of Darker Side. Unlike their regular relatives, they charge at Mario at the cost of their lives without being held back by a certain height.
    • Infinite Adaptive Mario, a Java remake with self-adjusting difficulty, contains Para-Bullet Bills.
  • Terraria has a number of them, including demonic eyes and eaters of souls.
  • In Underhero, purple butterflies are an early one. They attack by dive-bombing the player, and are attacked with slingshots.
  • Wells: One of the enemies Wells faces is little round flying robots.

    Puzzle Game 
  • The Magic Circle has the Whirlybirds, flying robots who can't be trapped. Once you gain the flight power, you can edit any mook in the game to be airborne.

    Real Time Strategy 
  • Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising features Enemy Recon Choppers, Apaches and alien light flyers. Note that the Species was originally meant to be purely land-based; the forms they evolved for aircraft are usually very weakly armored.
  • Pikmin:
    • Shearwigs are relatives of the common Sheargrub enemies with wings, allowing them to fly above the Pikmin's reach.
    • Puffy and Withering Blowhogs, unlike the other two Blowhog varieties, are filled with air and float above easy fighting range.
    • Pikmin 3:
      • The wasp-like Scornets fly all the time, and Winged Pikmin are needed to fight them effectively.
      • The Winged Pikmin can be considered a variant of this under the player's control, being by and large vanilla Pikmin but with wings, allowing them to tackle airborne foes and move directly over obstacles such as walls, cliffs and bodies of water.
  • Warcraft III:
    • Night Elf Archers can learn the Hippogryph Taming skill, which lets them hitch a ride on a hippogryph, combining a fragile ranged unit with a melee flyer to become the main ranged air unit. In the expansion, it's made reversible, which means any flying enemies will now be facing lots of arrows from below and big nasty claws above.
    • Gargoyles are the Undeads main air units, they have weak attacks, but can be a menace in large numbers.
    • The Obsidian Statue is a weak Support Party Member (a hovering statue that refills allies health or mana and does laughable damage), but it can become a Destroyer, a very powerful flying monster that has to eat magic to fuel its more destructive attacks and is immune to magic (this one is irreversible, however).

    Roguelike 
  • The Binding of Isaac: A wide variety of these is present.
    • Many are varieties of a fly, starting from regular red flies that have tiny health and only do contact damage, all the way to fast, tough Boom Flies that explode on death. In between there are the ranged Pooters and the smaller ladybug-like things that also explode on death, but are much slower and weaker than Boom Flies.
    • There are Hofers — eyeless heads suspended in the air that spit blood and a variety that moves while doing so. Then there are relatively high-level Babies, which shoot blood and constantly teleport, and Angelic Babies which fire a Spread Shot of three. The Womb has Leeches, which charge forward through the air at ridiculously high speeds if you’re in their path, with the upgraded Explosive Leeches and Angelic Leeches (also Explosive, but are protected by an invincible fly) encountered at Satan’s level and Cathedral, respectively
  • Gloom has the flying headcrab-like things which slowly fire projectiles. You can't shoot upwards either, you'll either have to let them fly off on their own (Unholy Parish), or wait until they float down to striking distance (their homegrounds of Lightless Forest, where they are spawned from nests).
  • hets has three main varieties, and all are quite dangerous. The large flies will speed up as soon as they see you, and when chasing you, they'll follow the shortest possible distance while also bobbing up and down, to make targeting difficult. The mosquito-like enemies will freeze for a second when they see you, but then they'll immediately fly in a straight line to the place you were standing at that time, not stopping until they've hit you or some obstacle. Lastly, there are the skulls that'll float lazily until they notice you, but then will regularly fire projectiles just like your own.
  • NetHack features many flying creatures. Essentially everything represented by A, B, D, W or v (vortex) is one. All of these obviously ignore pits, beartraps, landmines and such, and easily travel over water. All of them also have good-to-great AC — Dragons and Angels because of their scales and armour, the rest because flying lets them dodge attacks easier. There are also several special cases...
    • Couatl are essentially flying feathered angelic snakes. Lawful players will practically always be friendly with them, and so have little to worry about. Neutrals and chaotics are also likely to outmatch them by the time you first encounter one, and be immune to their poisonous bite. However, everything changes if you happen to be near water — couatl will then wrap itself around you, and pull you under, which is a guaranteed insta-kill unless you manage to free yourself in the one turn between couatl wrapping itself against your body, and couatl pulling you under (and if you are heavily burdened with stuff or otherwise slow, you won't get that turn either). The only way to definitely avoid that fate near water is to either wear a ring of magical breathing (makes drowning pointless, but all your stuff still gets soaked and screwed up as a result), or to wear an oilskin cloak, which will cause couatl and other entangling creatures, like kraken, to harmlessly slip off.
    • Killer bees (use letter "a", mainly used for the similarly dangerous giant ant varieties). Frequently encountered in swarms of 10+. Their tiny size gives them AC of 0 — i.e. landing a damaging blow on them is as difficult as on someone fully encased in the basic metal armor. Worst of all, though, is their poison — up until your character gets poison resistance, it frequently amounts to an insta-kill. If you don't have it, the best thing to do about them is to immediately engrave the Elbereth ward, and attack at range until they finally die or at least go away long enough for you to retreat to another level/behind some door, all while desperately reapplying the ward to ensure it doesn't fade while you are surrounded. This is comparatively easy for Rangers and Wizards, with their powerful ranged attacks/spells, but hell for classes like Archeologist, whose best ranged option is to literally throw anything you have in your inventory at them.
    • Mind flayers and master mind flayers (h, meaning humanoid, usually used for dwarves). Being humanoid, they can open doors, wear armor and wield weapons (including ranged ones, like bows, or magical ones, like staffs) in addition to their flying. They are telepathic, and they will lock on to telepathic players, dealing damage to them at range, even if they are behind several walls in a different room. None of that is as scary as their titular ability to suck your brains out. Essentially, every melee attack of theirs has a chance to reduce your intelligence, and if it falls below 3, your last thoughts will fade away. If you kill the mind flayer with only some intelligence loss, it can be restored relatively easily with potions or a unicorn horn: however, that wouldn't heal your amnesia, forcing you to re-learn what nearly every item in your inventory does, unless you've kept notes earlier. Helmets block some of these attacks, but mind flayers get three such attacks a turn, so the helmets are not enough, even if greased (flayers' tentacles will definitely slip off, up until they manage to wear off the grease). Ranged combat is better. Genociding them with a scroll is better still.
  • The legendary bats of Spelunky, which have a great detection range, but poor pathfinding and are thankfully one-hitpoint wonders. The Jungle levels occasionally have Vampires that can turn into Bat-form to keep things fresh. Then, the Ice Cave levels have laser-firing UFOs. These also die in one hit, but their shots can irreparably destroy the platforms. Woe betide you if they manage to hit the shrine to Kali...
    • The paid Spelunky remake also has the Jungle Wasps, which are tougher and more dangerous than bats.

    Role-Playing Games 
  • Arena.Xlsm, made in Microsoft Excel, had Bees, Wasps, Hornets, Bats, Vultures, Gargoyles and more. All of these are Immune to Ranged Attacks, apparently due to being able to dodge them mid-flight. This is a considerable problem, since it forces you to wait for them to come to you, even as some of them may still be able to shoot you at the same time as moving towards you. Thankfully, their immunity goes away if you manage to get them exhausted. (Though Hard Mode lets them keep their immunity).
  • The Elder Scrolls:
    • Morrowind has Cliff Racers, a prime example of Goddamned Bats. They appear all over the game's island setting, make an irritating sound, do little damage yet can make you flinch when they hit you, drop crappy loot, often carry diseases, come in flocks of three to ten, and their hit detection leaves a lot to be desired. They are so reviled that Bethesda took notice and, in later games, it is mentioned that one of Morrowind's Ensemble Darkhorses drove their entire species to extinction.
    • Skyrim has Dragons. They can appear randomly at any time to attack you as a Boss in Mook Clothing. They spend most of the battle flying until you've chipped away about 2/3 of their health, which forces them to land. Thankfully, you learn a Shout ("Dragonrend") that acts like an Anti-Air Brown Note to them, forcing them to land. However, it's a late-game Shout you can only learn about 3/4 of the way through the main quest. Tough luck to all you melee-only Dovahkiin out there!
  • Fallout 3 has the Bloatflies, which attack by spitting their larvae at truly unearthly speeds, and Mr. Handy — Mr. Gutsy robots, as well as Eyebots used by the Enclave.
  • Fallout: New Vegas adds the similar, but much tougher Cazadors.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • Final Fantasy XII has some enemies with the flying status, which means that you can't use melee attacks against them unless they are guns or bows/crossbows. Alternatively, one can just use magic on them without having to open up the inventory all the time.
    • Final Fantasy VII also has enemies with the "flying" status which cannot be damaged by melee attacks. There are also bat enemies which had a 1/8 (later ones had 1/4) chance of completely avoiding a physical attack.
    • Final Fantasy XIII has a wide variety of flying enemies including Wyverns, winged Cie'th, and airborne soldiers. They can be damaged by melee attacks, but tend to be more mobile than other enemies and are immune to being launched when staggered.
  • Mario & Luigi: Flying enemies are common, and cannot be hit with hammers and other low-hitting moves; the Goomba Stomp is needed instead.
    • Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story: Bowser has it pretty rough against the (very few) airborne enemies he fights — he is unable to attack them via any of his normal attacks, as his punches can't reach high enough and his fire breath can't be aimed upwards, and needs to inhale them so that the Bros. can deal with them.
    • Mario & Luigi: Dream Team adds mooks (and bosses) that change from being airborne mooks to land-based ones mid battle (and vice versa), with Flibbees going between being right way up and on the floor and upside down and in mid air. There's also Robo Drilldigger, a giant boss who has both land and sky forms (and whom is immune to the jump or hammer depending on which one is in use) and the boss Pi'illodium, who can thankfully be taken out the air and made vulnerable to ground based attacks if you destroy its wings.
  • Mass Effect:
    • Mass Effect: Flying Assault Drones and Rocket Drones. Their flying makes them immune to most biotic attacks, and they have some of the strongest shielding in the game and very tough weapons to boot. They land eventually, though, and can be lured to your side with a high enough Hacking skill.
    • Mass Effect 2 nerfs the Rocket and Assault Drones, but allows enemy Engineers to create small drones of their own. These have very low health, but are fast and usually attempt to flank you and dislodge you from cover using their melee electric shock attack. Luckily, engineers can create their own.
    • Mass Effect 3 has the Harvesters. Made from a wild, non-sentient specie, these are very tough, have a powerful cannon attack and spawn more basic husks around them. The multiplayer also has the very fast Geth Bomber drones with difficult-to-dodge attacks.
  • Pokémon:
    • In general, weak Flying-types turn up regularly in early routes and wilderness areas. They cannot be targeted with Ground-type moves, and tend to be pretty speedy on top of that.
    • Pokémon with the Levitate ability to dodge Ground-type attacks largely act the same. The Tynamo family is particularly nasty for this reason; its offensive stats are high enough that it can do more than stall, and its weakness to Ground attacks is annulled by its Levitate ability, effectively leaving it with none. That is, unless Gastro Acid, Entrainment, Gravity, Mummy, or Mold Breaker come out to play.
  • Tales of Symphonia: Hawks stay in the air and swoop to attack, unless knocked down by an attack.

    Shoot 'Em Ups 
  • Heavy Weapon has your tank on the ground, and most of your enemies in the air. There are some ground-based enemies too, which can sometimes be more annoying than the aerial ones.
  • Jaws Revenge had the helicopters, which dropped the Explosive Barrels onto your shark. However, it only took three hits at most to bring them down.
  • Stormwinds has every single enemy, which are all flying Steampunk machines of the nation of Demo. Justified in that Demo is attempting to invade from across the ocean. A good number of them tend to be carried by huge balloons as their method of flight, shooting them there will cause them to take massive damage.

    Simulation games 
  • Ace Combat has the player swatting entire squadrons of enemy aircraft.
  • Air Force Delta also throws multiple varieties of hostile planes at you.

    Survival Horror 
  • Dead Space:
    • Dead Space has the sorta-flying Infectors, which are weak but fast, and whose main purpose consists of making more Necromorphs from the corpses lying around.
    • The Dead Space 2 DLC Severed has the actual winged Flyer Necromorphs. Thankfully, they are also the weakest of the bunch.
    • Dead Space 3 has a Necromorph formed from the alien spore plant that is only encountered in Zero-G environment and will shoot you with its spores.
  • Kâbus 22 has giant flying bat Maduns as an enemy type.
  • ObsCure and its sequel had the university girls mutated into moth-like flying enemies, which also had a habit of attacking in swarms.
  • The infamous Air Screamers and their Otherworld version, Night Flutters, in Silent Hill. They only appear when it’s dark and foggy and usually aren’t spotted until your siren starts ringing. Avoiding them is difficult because they fly faster than you and are smart enough not to fly straight to your location but will circle you and then attack. Fighting them is even worse, as they attack out of reach of melee weapons unless it’s too cramped for that (and even then, they can’t be attacked by knife at all), forcing you to waste seven Handgun bullets to bring them down.
    • Silent Hill 3 had the Pendulum, a whirring machine-like thing that flew like a helicopter with blades of rusted metal (which it eagerly used to cut you up as well, of course.) Silent Hill: Homecoming had the airborne insectoid swarms, which would cling to Alex and drain his health over time.
    • Also, Silent Hill 4 had relatively weak Mothbats, which were notable for weakness to Bug Spray and being capable of distracting the ghost of main antagonist from pursuing you.
  • The Balloons in Sir, You Are Being Hunted won't attack you, but if you get caught in their spotlights they will alert other enemies to your presence.
  • The Resident Evil series has T-Virus infected crows. They're not overly aggressive so provided you keep your distance they'll usually leave you alone, but if you fire a weapon then all bets are off and you'll be swarmed. One of the most well-known puzzles in the series pops up in Resident Evil where you must solve a puzzle involving paintings and switches in a hallway where a murder of infected crows are perched on the rafters: get it wrong and it agitates the crows, forcing you to make a mad dash for the entrance before you get pecked to death.

    Tower Defense 
  • Arknights: Drones serve as airborne enemies. The most basic variant can't even attack your operators, but later drones are significantly more dangerous, being equipped with long-range guns (sometimes even gatling guns), drop bombs, launch magic spells, or buffing every enemy unit in a radius around them, all while still completely bypassing your melee operators.
  • Bubble Tanks: Tower Defense has an odd variation — in this game, the flying enemies are called "Ghost" enemies. They pretty much act in the same way you'd expect a flying mook to in a Tower Defense game — by bypassing your towers.
  • Two kinds of flying enemies appear in Defense Grid: The Awakening, one of which just has more health than the other. In any case, both of them are very dangerous as they are immune to some towers, and cores stolen by them cannot be replaced.
  • Desktop Tower Defense has the appropriately-named "Flying" creep.
  • The Kingdom Rush series has quite a number of these, which cannot be blocked by Barracks or directly targeted by Artillery (though Splash Damage will still hurt them). Every wave containing these is demarcated by a different wave marker to alert the player. Downplayed by Gulaemons and Leap Dragons, which are normally grounded enemies but can fly for a short while every now and then.
  • Mini Robot Wars has the Scout Helicopter, Jetpacker, Napalm Airship, Hyper Jet, Ghost and Reaper. The good news is that they do not have much health compared to land-based mooks. During the New Game Plus, many of the land-based enemy units get a helicopter attachment that allows them to travel in the air at a fast speed.
  • Plants vs. Zombies
    • The Balloon Zombie flies over all your defences and cannot be targeted by most Plants. The Anti-Air exceptions are the Cactus and Cattail, which pop their balloons, and the Blover, which flat-out blows away all of the Balloon Zombies on the screen.
    • The sequel introduces several- the Seagull Zombie, the Parrot Zombie, the Jetpack and Disco Jetpack zombies, and any zombie carried by the Bug Zombie. Unlike the Balloon zombie, regular plants could thankfully hit them. The Dodo Rider is an interesting case- it starts out as a grounded mook, but when it encounters ice floes or troublesome plants it flies over them until it passes the obstacle.

    Turn Based Strategy/Tactics 
  • Age of Wonders had various flying units for each faction. Usually, they were amongst its most powerful, like the dragons, White And Dark Angels, the cat-wyvern-like thing, the air elemental and more. It helped that they were practically invulnerable to the melee attacks (unless those were the counter-attacks in response to be hit) and practically had to be wailed down with ranged units (that had a habit of missing) or the expensive magic.
  • Code Name: S.T.E.A.M had Shrikes and Nettlers. The latter often hover high enough to require the player to actively look up with their current character to notice them.
  • Fire Emblem throws Pegasus Riders, Wyvern Riders, and, occasionally, flying monsters at the players on a regular basis.
  • Heroes of Might and Magic:
    • Heroes of Might and Magic III generally had one or two flying units per race. Some, like Citadel Lightning Birds or the Tower Gargoyles, would only cover seven squares or so, while others, like Angels, Pegassi or all dragon types, could fly to any square on the board. The Dungeon faction Harpies deserve a special mention: when upgraded, these had the “Return Back (to a starting point) After Striking” and “Enemy Doesn’t Respond To Blows” trait, which essentially made them into a ranged unit that could attack with impunity and flee if a stronger unit cornered them.
    • Heroes of Might and Magic V has a smaller selection of races, but tries to give them more variety to compensate. As such, the flying units also gain more unique traits. For instance, Gryphons can fly off the map for one turn to dive down at your chosen spot in the next. If the enemy troops are still there, they receive doubled damage from the attack.
  • Into the Breach: Hornet, Moth, and Mosquito Vek, as well as the Psions, hover above the ground, making them immune to drowning and falling into a pit. However, they are still vulnerable to hazards on the ground, such as landmines or acid pools.
  • Nippon Ichi strategy-RPG titles feature a variety of flying creatures, including angels, succubi, and assorted monsters.
  • Super Robot Wars includes a broad selection of flying units, both giant robots and more conventional aircrafts.
  • XCOM has Floaters and an assortment of similar aliens in the sequels.

    Wide Open Sandbox 
  • Minecraft has a number of flying mobs. A number of them are harmless or passive (such as parrots and bats), and then there are the less harmless ones. In most cases, bringing a bow and arrows is a good idea:
    • Ghasts are large floating ghost-like jellyfish found only in the Nether and fire exploding fireballs at you. You can use melee to hit their fireballs back to them to kill them.
    • Blazes are also only found in the Nether and are capable of floating above the ground, although they usually stay around ground level. They fire less explosive fireballs at you that can't be deflected.
    • Vexes are ghostlike entities summoned by Evokers that harass you and can pass through walls, but lose health over time.
    • Phantoms are undead manta ray-like Animalistic Abominations that spawn at night in the overworld in large numbers and swoop at the player — but they only appear if the player hasn't slept for three days, since they're attracted to insomnia. Notably, they were picked in a vote for a new mob by fans who felt that the overworld had too few of this trope.
  • [PROTOTYPE] and its sequel had their protagonists so powerful that the helicopters, normally reserved for Boss Battle|s in games or at least acting as Boss in Mook Clothing, became this trope. After all, both Alex Mercer and James Heller could just jump up to their level and kick them out of the air.

    Non-video game examples 
Anima & Manga

Comic Books

  • Wonder Woman Vol 1: Atomia's Protron mooks have built in jet packs, which makes them more annoying than the usual mook as this was long before later writers gave Diana the ability to fly on her own.

Fan Works

  • Hellsister Trilogy: Darkseid deploys legions of bat-winged parademons in order to deter the heroes. Superman and Supergirl destroy hundreds of parademons in battle, but the aerial demons succeed in slowing the heroes down.
  • Son of the Sannin: Akatsuki's Zetsu clone army includes a winged variant capable of flying. The Shinobi Allied Forces refer to them as "Flyers". Kurotsuchi prefers to call them "Miserable Sons of Bitches" since their attack forced her to back off on her plans of overseeing the battle from above.

Films — Live-Action

Pinball

  • In Airborne Avenger, the villain's Mooks get around with hang gliders... while the hero uses a one-man flying jet-sled.

Tabletop Games

  • Arkham Horror: Blue-coloured monsters can fly, in order to more freely attack investigators. If they fail to find a suitable target, they will move into sky, becoming unreachable, until the next opportunity arises.
  • Epic (Card Game): Champions with the Airborne ability, who can only be blocked by other Airborne cards.
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • Formian winged warriors are a subtype of the common warrior caste capable of aerial movement, and specialize in skirmishing against landbound foes using their agility and ability to shoot their tail spikes as a ranged attack from the air.
    • Quadrones are the only winged variant of modrons, and often combine this with their proficiency with bows to serve as aerial ranged support for modron forces.
  • Magic: The Gathering: Creatures with the Flying ability are these. They can only be blocked by creatures with Flying or creatures with Reach.
  • Pathfinder: Xanderghul created winged sinspawn capable of flight, both because he felt that his minions should be able to literally soar over his rivals' and because his domain was highly mountainous.
  • Warhammer 40,000: The malleability of the more basic Tyranid organisms means that it's fairly easy for the Hive Mind to create airborne variants of them.
    • Gargoyles are essentially just Gaunts, the basic foot troops of the swarms, with a pair of wings tacked on. Nightgaunts are a similar variation, but with scything talons instead of the Gargoyles' organic guns.
    • Shrikes are a variant of the common Warriors equipped with membranous wings, intended to serve both as highly mobile shock troops and to oversee other flying organisms who might otherwise become separated from ground-bound synapse creatures.
    • Sky-slashers are a winged variant of Ripper swarms, used for skyborne Zerg Rushes.

Webcomics

  • Homestuck: A major mechanic of Sburb is that all items that a player places into their Kernelsprite before entering the Medium give their traits to the enemies encountered thereafter. After Dave does this with a dead crow, some enemies, chiefly Imps and Basilisks, develop avian wings that allow them to fly.

Western Animation


 
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Alternative Title(s): Flying Mook, Airborne Mooks

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Nebulosus

An enhanced Stratus type that has been given flight capabilities for assault, greatly increasing its operational parameters. The enhanced musculature it has to aid with flight stabilization has also increased its overall size, and it has been given improved attack capabilities such as the ability to instantly deploy and attack with a specially designed spear.

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