Webby leads the kids in a race against the Beagles to find a secret treasure while hiding a secret of her own; Della is forced to teach Launchpad how to actually fly a plane.
Tropes for this episode include:
- Achievements in Ignorance: Launchpad says his high score on the "pointometer" is about 5000. Della starts to correct him that it's the airspeed indicator before realizing he once flew 5000 miles per hour in a propeller airplane.
- An Aesop:
- You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone. You have special qualities and talents of your own.
- There's more than one way to be a hero.
- Always Someone Better: Webby read about Della's achievements in her diary, and feels like she isn't measuring up to where Della was at her age. The whole adventure in the cave was Webby's desperate attempt to outdo Della at something. Della eventually talks her out of this attitude.
- Badass Bystander: The Beagle Boys capture the tour guide to get information on the treasure. They regret it when she beats them up and escapes despite being tied up. Justified, as the end credits confirm it was Mrs. Quackfaster in a variety of disguises, likely as one of Scrooge's cost-saving measures.
- Be Yourself: What Della tells Webby when she begins to feel sorry for herself.
- Breather Episode: A light comedy heavy on sight gags and banter standing between the horror of "A Nightmare on Killmotor Hill" and the jeopardy and tension of "Timephoon."
- Buffy Speak: Launchpad calls the plane's propeller "Spinny-boy", and thinks the speedometer is a "pointometer" that tells him how many points he's won.
- Call-Back: In crafting his own legend at the end of the episode, Dewey uses the name his mother originally intended, Turbo, as a middle name.
- Captain Crash: Della is angry at Launchpad for crashing her plane so many times, but is genuinely impressed when he crashes through a mountain without killing them all or seriously damaging the plane.
- Continuity Nod: Huey is still licking strange things. It's unfortunate that it happened to be a spider web, and he hatched a spider in his mouth.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right:
- Della tries to engage the skywriting smoke, but apparently gum works better than an actual valve at venting the smoke. Also, Launchpad's experience with controlled crashes saved the day a couple of times.
- Lampshaded when Launchpad explained that the loose pilot chair was because it calms the passengers if he turns around to face them during a crash. When they do end up crashing and Launchpad reassures her, she begrudgingly admits it does calm her down a bit.
- Driver Faces Passenger: Sitting in the pilot's seat, Della Duck is surprised by how loose it's adjusted, and Launchpad explains that that makes it easier to turn around and talk to the passengers. Apparently Launchpad plans to turn to face his passengers when they're about to crash.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Big Time Beagle drowns his sorrows in buttermilk after being kicked out by Ma Beagle.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Della telling Webby that she doesn't have to try to compete with Della makes her realize that she really owes Launchpad an apology for forcing exactly that.
- Famous Ancestor: Cornelius Coot is one of Duckburg's founders and a relative of the triplets and Della from the non-McDuck side of the family tree.
- Funny Background Event: While Huey, Dewey, and Webby are slowly and laboriously pushing the mine cart uphill, Louie walks by in the background. He's the only one who realized they can just walk up the slope faster without the stupid cart.
- Guile Hero: It is discovered Cornelius Coot was one. The legends sensationalize his strength and prowess in battle, but the duck's greatest asset was actually the ingenuity it took to scare the Beagle clan away from the fort.
- Hamster-Wheel Power: The turbo drive on the Sunchaser is powered by a hamster named Mr. Nibbles. Because a gerbil couldn’t run the propeller, according to Launchpad. Fortunately, Mr. Nibbles is jacked.
- I Have No Son!: Ma Beagle disowns Big Time Beagle for his constant failures. She takes him back at the end after he saves her life.
- Logical Latecomer: Della finds Launchpad's piloting and repair methods incredibly alarming, though she's able to see that they somehow work.
- Mama Bear: The moment Della's plot fuses with the kids' plot, she wastes no time in bounding Ma Beagle and her cronies with a rope in less than a minute.
- Mythology Gag:
- The mine is naturally quite reminiscent of the African Mine level of the NES game, including the triplets in a cart.
- Launchpad is established as having been in so many crashes that he can crash safely better than anyone, which was also a plot point in the 1987 series (particularly the episode "The Uncrashable Hindentanic"). Likewise, he wears a hat similar to his classic pilot goggles while learning from Della.
- The popcorn trick comes from the Don Rosa comics story "His Majesty McDuck". Statues of Coot showed him holding ears of corn, as he does in the reworked statue in the final scene, long before this, starting with the Carl Barks story "Statuesque Spendthrifts".
- Nose Art: Della paints a shark face on the Sunchaser.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Mrs. Quackfaster goes from being a tour guide to the Victual vendor in the time it takes Louie to walk from the one to the other (which is only a few feet away). Louie does a double-take back to emphasize the trope.
- Parental Substitute: Della acts as one to Webby.
- Pest Controller: Big Time manages to find a way to tame the spiders living in the caves, and briefly takes on the identity "Bug Time" to reflect on this.
- Popcorn on the Cob: Webby finally unearths the "Golden Armory" of Cornelius Coot, but turns out to have nothing but ears of corn. Turns out Coot had a fuse that lit the corn and made it pop, tricking the Beagle militia into thinking he had a huge army firing from all directions.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Ma Beagle lays one of these onto Big Time by saying that he and he alone is culpable for the gang's constant botched jobs, is a failure as a criminal, Beagle, and son, and is no longer a member of the Beagle Boys since she will no longer tolerate him messing up their crimes.
- Rollercoaster Mine: Subverted. The mine carts the kids and Big Time ride don't have enough velocity to get over the first dip on the track, so they have to laboriously push them uphill.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The boys immediately decide to leave after finding out Cornelius Coot's "treasure" is just corn, despite Webby insisting otherwise.
- Self-Serving Memory: At the end, Dewey is explaining to some tourists about the discovery of the "Golden Armory" of Cornelius Coot, or rather his own version which paints himself as the hero.
- Signs of Disrepair: The sign in the cave that Webby read as "Coot Arms" is implied to have actually read "Coot Farms", because it's where he stored his corn.
- Spiders Are Scary: The kids find plenty of spiders in the old caverns, and Big Time eventually finds a way to tame them. Only Webby seems unfazed in their presence.
- Stock "Yuck!": Fort Duckburg serves buttermilk, which Webby and later Della spit out upon attempting to drink it. Big Time and Launchpad both like it however.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: When discovering some mine carts, the kids believe they are going to have a Rollercoaster Mine. However, they quickly get stuck in the first valley, without enough speed to climb the following rise.
- Title Drop: As the popcorn is flooding the cave, Webby exclaims that it's "the Golden Armory of Cornelius Coot".
- Wall Crawl: While exploring the tunnels, Webby starts scuttling on the ground like a spider, then crawls up one of the walls and across the ceiling before dropping back down. The boys quip that she's acting more "webby" than usual, but otherwise aren't too phased by it.
- Was Too Hard on Him: After reassuring Webby to be cool in her own way, Della realizes she had been too harsh with Launchpad by lashing out at him for crashing the Sunchaser.
- Who's Laughing Now?: Big Time after he's tamed the spiders.
- You All Look Familiar: Mrs. Quackfaster seems to run all the positions at the fort, at least before the treasure is uncovered.
