Sky King is an American radio and television adventure series. The title character is Arizona rancher and aircraft pilot Schuyler "Sky" King. The series was likely based on a true-life personality of the 1930s, Jack Cones, the "Flying Constable" of Twentynine Palms in San Bernardino County, California, although this claim is unverified. Although the series had strong western elements, King mostly captured criminals and spies, and found lost hikers with the use of his plane, the Songbird. Though the planes used changed during the course of the series, the later model was not given a number, but was still known as the Songbird. King and his niece, Penny, lived on the Flying Crown Ranch, near the town of Grover, Arizona. Penny and Clipper were also pilots, though still relatively inexperienced and looking to their uncle for guidance and mentoring. Penny was an accomplished air racer and rated multi-engine pilot, whom Sky trusted to fly the Songbird. In the third TV episode, Penny refers to Clipper as "my brother", so they are siblings. The musical score was largely the work of Herschel Burke Gilbert.
Episode 1
During a fierce thunderstorm, Sky picks up a mayday call from a Air Force courier plane which is about to run out of gas. The Air Force request Sky's assistance in locating the downed aircraft because the pilot is transporting secret documents that are of interest to foreign governments. Sky locates the plane wreck, but the pilot is nowhere to be found. When he discovers that the navigational instruments have been tampered with, Sky fears that enemy agents may have located and stolen the secret plans and are headed for the nearby Mexican border.
Episode 2
When Penny discovers a wounded carrier pigeon carrying a valuable ruby attached to its leg, Sky suspects a gang of jewel smugglers is operating in the area. With the help of a Mexican police detective, Sky sets up to break up the criminal operation.
Episode 3
A crooked express agent fakes a hold-up to steal gold from his company's vault. He uses an old stagecoach to get the stolen loot out of town.
Episode 4
While helping a friend run his freight airline after an accident, Sky stumbles across a gold-smuggling operation.
Episode 5
Sky's efforts to prove corruption in the county clerk's office nearly result in disaster, when Sky's foreman, a non-pilot, must land the Songbird when Clipper becomes too ill to fly the plane.
Episode 6
Sky becomes suspicious when a Eastern woman shows up in Grover claiming to be the long-lost niece and heir of a dead rancher.
Episode 7
Penny picks up the wrong suitcase at the airport and discovers it's full of counterfeit money. Sky suspects that a young former engraver might be involved.
Episode 8
A rancher disinherits his nephew in favor of his young son. When the rancher is murdered the young man is blamed. Sky hopes that by faking a jailbreak, the real murderer will be forced into the open, but the plan backfires when Clipper and the young man are kidnapped.
Episode 9
Sky King picks up a young hitchhiker who refuses to divulge his identity, or where he's been or going. Determined to fill in the blank spaces on the young man's resume, Sky learns that he is an escapee from a boy's reformatory who was involved in a recent bank robbery.
Episode 10
A young rancher disappears after the man attempting to foreclose on his mortgage is murdered. Sky is convinced that the man is innocent and that there's another explanation for the man's apparent flight.
Episode 11
Eastern gangsters set up a protection racket near Grover and the local ranchers appeal to Sky for help.
Episode 12
The drug Sky delivers to a critically ill man does more than save his life; the medicine causes the man to confess that he's a former criminal who has attempted to go straight.
Episode 13
Angry that Sky and Clipper won't allow her to join the search for a missing refugee professor, Penny slaps on a pair of six-shooters and launches her own investigation.
Episode 14
Penny sees a man escape from a doctor's office, and is informed that the man is a dangerous mental patient. Sky looks into the incident, and soon finds himself mixed up in foreign spies and poison gas.
Episode 15
Sky investigates a series of mysterious payroll robberies, where the police chase the robbers only to see their getaway car mysteriously disappear.
Episode 16
A local banker is blackmailed by two former confederates who aware of a crime he committed over twenty years ago and was never apprehended.
Episode 17
A couple of Easterners claim to have traveled west to visit a dude ranch, but are actually a pair of con artists willing to commit murder to obtain a ranch with a rich uranium deposit on it.
Episode 18
Sky teams up with a military intelligence officer to track down a foreign agent who blew up a secret government project.
Episode 19
Sky stumbles across a dead pilot and suspicious looking plane wreck and discovers that the man was murdered and the crash never happened. He learns that the plane was carrying a number of valuable pieces of ancient Chinese art, all of which are missing from the plane's cargo hold.
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