History Main / TheSkyIsAnOcean

* When the ''[[TheCaptain Captain]]'' or ''[[NumberTwo First Officer]]'' of your air''liner'' in the ''cockpit'' turns off the "Fasten Seat Belts" signs you may move about the ''cabin''. Flight Attendants were once ''stewards'' and ''stewardesses'', and they still serve food and drinks from a ''galley''. Very large airliners have upper and lower ''decks''. Aircraft are kept on ''course'' and steered to ''port'' or ''starboard'' by ''pilots'' and one of the control-surfaces they use is the ''rudder''. At take-off and landing, the ''cabin crew'' are told to take their ''stations''. The space for luggage is ''cargo hold'' where the ''payload'' is ''shipped'' to the destination, and the place for relieving your internal pressure is ''head''. While airplanes have fuselages, flying boats have ''hulls''. The captain, who sits in the ''cockpit'', will do the ''navigation'' and plot the ''bearing'' and ''course'' for the ''autopilot''.

** Needless to speak about ''bulkheads'' (pro walls), ''navigation lights'' (pro flight lights), ''cockpit'' (pro control room) and so on. The airspeed is measured in ''knots'' - not kilometres or miles per hour, with ''cruising speed'' usually being around 450 to 500 kn. The whole aviation terminology derives itself from maritime. The glazed see-through apertures on the fuselage are windows, though - not portholes.

** The navigation lights are exactly the same as on maritime vessels - red on port wing, green on starboard wing and white at aft. When the engine is on, strobe beacon is lit on both sides of the fuselage (corresponds to the white motoring light of maritime vessels). Actually flying boats, hovercraft, ground effect planes and floatplanes ''are'' included in the international maritime navigation light rules.
** The Right of the Way Rules are ''exactly'' the same in the sky as at the sea. Supplied with the rule that the one who has less altitude has the right of the way.

** Until its collapse in 1991, Pan Am Airways referred to it's airliners as ''Clippers'', with each aircraft being individually named in the style of sailing ships, with names such as ''China Clipper'' and ''Clipper Defiance''. In the US, Pan Am was originally a TropeCodifier for this trend in civil aviation, with pilots transitioning from [[ThoseMagnificentFlyingMachines leather jackets with silk scarves]] to uniforms similar to those worn by naval officers.

* The sixth season of ''WesternAnimation/Ninjago'', appropriately titled "Skybound", introduces Sky Pirates.

* ''Film/Nope'' features a lot of parallels to ''Film/Jaws'', except focused on aliens and the sky. The main antagonist is a sea creature that roams the sky.

SisterTrope of SpaceIsAnOcean. In this case, it's the sky in the atmosphere of a planet or natural satellite being used to make visual/stylistic parallels to the ocean, but the same basic principles apply. As with space, [[{{Metaphorgotten}} the metaphor can easily be taken a little too far]] (although the presence of gravity ''might'' explain parts of it). Often runs on the RuleOfCool.

* %%''VideoGame/BahamutLagoon''.%%
* %%Done wonderfully in ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos''.%%

[[folder:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]

* In the ''Manga/AhMyGoddess'' manga, the Schroedingers swim through the air... [[spoiler:but it's mainly in a conceptual space]] so it might not completely count. Still evokes the trope, though.
%%* ''Anime/CastleInTheSky''
* In an episode of ''Manga/{{Doraemon}}'', the gadget-of-the-week 'Simulated Water Pump' permits the protagonists to treat air as water and 'dive' in the air, completed with FlyingSeafoodSpecial and [[CoolBoat a ship that sails in the sky]] (albeit unknowingly, it finally gets stranded on a roof).
* ''Anime/LastExile'' has airships which, due to their [[SchizoTech otherwise limited technology]], fight each other in a manner similar to pre-industrial naval ships. Furthermore, because of the planet's [[WorldShapes unusual shape]], the sky is a literal barrier that has to be crossed to get from one continent to another.

* ''Fanfic/StarWarsGalacticFolkloreAndMythology'': The Frozians, an race noted for their skill at building airships and zeppelins, are described as having their own so-called "aerial mythology", which borrows numerous elements from real-world Myth/NauticalFolklore. Notable Frozian myths include that of Rainbow Cove (an afterlife for pilots who have served at least seven years, similar to Fiddler's Green), mischievous [[GripingAboutGremlins gremlins]] (which steal food and cigarettes, and damage parachutes), the sully-gullies (a race of suicidal birds which intentionally fly into propellors, causing aircraft to crash), and the ''Black Rolyat'' ([[FlyingDutchman a ghostly dirigible forced to sail the skies for all eternity]]).

* Creator/{{Disney}}:
** ''WesternAnimation/Fantasia2000'': The ''Pines of Rome'' segment takes this to its logical extreme with whales swimming through the air and breaching through the [[SpaceIsAir air/stratosphere boundary]].
** ''WesternAnimation/PeterPan'': The pirate ship can fly through the sky.

* ''Film/FlashGordon1980'''s rather lighthearted approach gives its {{zeerust}} SpaceOpera setting this vibe at times. The different planets in Ming's empire are all absurdly small {{single biome planet}}s, many of them looking more like a {{Floating Continent}}s than spherical planets. The space between them is [[SpaceIsAir breathable]] and full of [[AlienSky vividly-coloured clouds]]. At one point, Flash suggests using parachutes to float from one "planet" to another, and the villains' CoolStarship, the ''Ajax'', has an open-air deck and portholes on the side for its crew to fire rifles out of, to repel boarders. The overall setting feels more like a WorldInTheSky than a solar system.

* The Dreamlands of Creator/HPLovecraft's Franchise/CthulhuMythos feature boats that float on the sky and can sail to the moon.
* ''Airborn'' has Sky Pirates and an airship that's basically a luxury cruise liner.

* In ''Literature/TheIntegralTrees'' by Creator/LarryNiven, which is set in a thin, orbiting band of breathable air, the sky literally is an ocean, since the one planet in the band has uninhabitably dense air and high gravity.
* OlderThanTelevision: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1913 scifi short story "The Horror of the Heights" features an aviator who has a nasty run in with a swarm of flying jellyfish.
* Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs uses this trope throughout his [[Literature/JohnCarterOfMars Martian tales]], especially when TheHero is being chased by SkyPirates. A few of the books also climax with spectacular battles between aerial armadas.
* Creator/KarlSchroeder's "Virga" series takes place inside a HollowWorld filled with air, where people, ships, and entire cities float around.
* In Michael Reaves' ''The Shattered World'', ships sail through the air-filled Abyss between the many fragments of a world broken into pieces. The sky/sea analogy is taken further still when its characters encounter "dragoneers", dragon-hunting equivalents of old-time harpoon whalers.
* In Literature/TheDeathGateCycle, each world is based on an element. Arianus, the World of Air, is exactly this, with elves using magical airships for transport.
* Creator/JimButcher's ''Literature/TheCinderSpires'' has a lot of {{Magitek}} powered skyships and aerial combat. The sky is specifically the ocean circa the Anglo-Spanish or Napoleonic Wars, and one of the main characters is {{privateer}}.
* In the {{Literature/Temeraire}} series, dragon-based aviation forms a branch of the military of many countries during the Napoleonic wars. The associate officers are given naval ranks, like cadet, lieutenant, captain, commodore, and admiral. The main character even used to be a 'naval' captain, until he became an aviator when he got a dragon egg thrown in his lap.
* ''Literature/ShadowOfTheConqueror'' takes place in a WorldInTheSky where {{Magitek}} skyships put this trope into action, complete with SkyPirates.
* In ''Literature/TheEdgeChronicles'', ships sail in the skies, and there are SkyPirates.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In "A Christmas Carol", the sky above the planet Ember was full of fish (including sharks).

* There's currently an RPG in development known as ''Upwind''. It's conceptualized as being a cross between ''WesternAnimation/TreasurePlanet'' and Creator/StudioGhibli.

* The entire point of ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia''. Hell, different parts of the sky are actually ''called'' "oceans" - you start in Mid Ocean and go out from there.
** Yet the SkyPirates are still called "'''air''' pirates", [[OrphanedEtymology despite no other kind of pirate existing]].
* ''VideoGame/EccoTheDolphin: The Tides of Time'' has "the great sea of the sky", which includes floating islands, giant water tubes, dolphins who have evolved helium sacs to float in the air, and [[FlyingSeafoodSpecial GIANT FLYING JELLYFISH.]]
** ''Defender of the Future'' had huge floating water globes, floating water tubes, and non-floating-but-still-in-the-sky squid.

* Cutscenes in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'' show an airship with oars.

* The airships from ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3''. In the game ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' however, [[BigBad Bowser]] actually upgrades them all so they can [[SpaceisanOcean fly through outer space.]]
* %%Done wonderfully in ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos''.%%
* The X game series. Space ships experience severe drag and fly at speeds of 50-400 m/s. Their greatest sensor range is something like 25 m. What they don't know is that they are all not in space but underwater. It's a boron plot, no doubt.
* In the UsefulNotes/ArcadeGame ''Sky Adventure'', the FinalBoss is a flying armored galley with oars.

* ''VideoGame/SkyGunner'' takes place in a world of floating airships.

* ''WesternAnimation/DragonTales'' has a kind pirate whose ships flies in the air.
* ''WesternAnimation/LoveDeathAndRobots'': In the episode "Fish Night", two traveling salesmen come across a large group of ghostly fish and other marine life in the Arizona desert. The creatures all swim through the air as if the place is still the ocean that it once was. One of the men decides to join them, and is somehow also able to swim up into the air.
* ''WesternAnimation/StormHawks'' is set in a world of mountaintop landmasses, called terras, over deadly wastelands. Travel between the terras is by flight. Wildlife includes sky sharks, and the episode "Leviathan" brings in a, well, leviathan.

* When the ''[[TheCaptain Captain]]'' or ''[[NumberTwo First Officer]]'' of your air''liner'' turns off the "Fasten Seat Belts" signs you may move about the ''cabin''. Flight Attendants were once ''stewards'' and ''stewardesses'', and they still serve food and drinks from a ''galley''. Very large airliners have upper and lower ''decks''. Aircraft are kept on ''course'' and steered to ''port'' or ''starboard'' by ''pilots'' and one of the control-surfaces they use is the ''rudder''. At take-off and landing, the ''cabin crew'' are told to take their ''stations''. The space for luggage is ''cargo hold'' where the payload is ''shipped'' to the destination, and the place for relieving your internal pressure is ''head''. While airplanes have fuselages, flying boats have ''hulls''. The captain, who sits in the ''cockpit'', will do the ''navigation'' and plot the ''bearing'' and ''course'' for the ''autopilot''.

** The terrestrial planet Venus applies in a sense, the clouds are ''so'' thick that possible colonization attempts include airships and floating cities.

* The Creator/CrossGen series ''ComicBook/{{Meridian}}'' was set in a world of floating islands and airships.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''Literature/StarWarsGalacticFolkloreAndMythology'': The Frozians, an race noted for their skill at building airships and zeppelins, are described as having their own so-called "aerial mythology", which borrows numerous elements from real-world Myth/NauticalFolklore. Notable Frozian myths include that of Rainbow Cove (an afterlife for pilots who have served at least seven years, similar to Fiddler's Green), mischievous gremlins (which steal food and cigarettes, and damage parachutes), the sully-gullies (a race of suicidal birds which intentionally fly into propellors, causing aircraft to crash), and the ''Black Wyvern'' (a ghostly dirigible forced to sail the skies for all eternity).
[[/folder]]