The Air Pirates are Don Karnage's henchmen in Disney's animated series TaleSpin. Karnage's long-term goal is to plunder the city of Cape Suzette, but he is often thwarted; either by the cargo pilot Baloo and his navigator Kit Cloudkicker and the various employees of Higher for Hire, or by the pirates' own incompetence, or by the defenses of Cape Suzette, most notably the cliff guns. The chief subordinates among Karnage's pirates are Mad Dog, Dumptruck, and (to a lesser extent) Gibber, as they most regularly accompany Don Karnage and are shown taking charge in his absence.
(voiced by Jim Cummings) is a Red Wolf pirate with a notched ear who is usually dressed in a blue tailcoat, trousers, and black boots, wielding a cutlass. He is the captain of the air pirates and has a mottled accent that has been described as a mix of Spanish, Italian, and French. Jim Cummings has admitted that he drew some influence from the Desi Arnaz role of Ricky Ricardo (from I Love Lucy). Karnage is quite self-absorbed and spends a good bit of time speaking highly of himself. He is easily the most competent of the air pirates, although that's not much of an achievement since most of the others tend to be bumblers.
(voiced by Charlie Adler) is Karnage's first mate who is described as a coyote, although seems to resemble a cross between a weasel and a coyote. He is usually found wearing cloth headgear, flight goggles, a sleeveless blue jerkin, and spiked bracers. He also has a whisker mustache in Fu Manchu style. Mad Dog has a whiny, nasally voice and is the smarter of the two main henchmen, which is not saying much. He tends to be a bit lazy, loves to take credit for anything good, and loves to shift blame for anything bad.
(voiced by Chuck McCann) is Karnage's second mate. He is a mastiff who is fairly large and barrel-chested. He wears a top hat with a feather, blue kerchief, an auburn and white jacket, and an ammo belt across his chest. True to his name, he doesn't seem very bright. He speaks with a Swedish accent.
(voiced by Chuck McCann) is another stubby pirate who is often featured. He's an American Pitbull Terrier who's rather short and dressed in a brown flight cap, a patched yellow jacket, and a reddish-orange sweater. He only talks by whispering or mumbling into someone's ear so that no one else can really understand what he's saying. He often gives advice to Don Karnage.
(voiced by Charlie Adler) is a large, yellow-furred Siberian Husky with a tufted goatee and often a crazy enthusiastic gleam in his eyes. He speaks in an Australian accent with a whining tone and wears a sleeveless blue vest, armbands laced with dynamite, moss green trousers, and his ears are tucked into a jeweled ring above his head. He's known to cause great disaster through his enthusiasm to do something useful for the pirates, usually because he's not thinking about the consequences.
(voiced by Frank Welker) is a large, fat tan cat pirate dressed in a poorly fitting blue shirt, a red scarf, and trousers. He's another one that seems to be quite dense. His name stemmed from a throwaway line based on the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, where Karnage tells him "Open the bomb-bay doors, Hal." (parodying the iconic line "Open the pod-bay doors, HAL.")
(voiced by Chuck McCann) is a stout brown Schnauzer pirate with a gray-white natural mustache who wears a black Viking helmet.
(voiced by Rob Paulsen) is a thin wolf-like pirate who wears a blue cap, a green scarf, a yellow shirt, blue overalls, and black fingerless gloves. Described by Don Karnage as their "mechanical genius," he seems to handle any repairs and mechanics for the pirates.
(voiced by Tony Jay) is a Scottish Terrier who wears a Balmoral bonnet, blue sunglasses, and a red-and-white striped shirt. He is Don Karnage's head engineer of the Iron Vulture. Karnage often mistakenly calls him "Scotty," though Jock eventually tells him otherwise. Jock is one of the few Air Pirates who is not seen doing any harm to other people, possibly making him a positive person. Most of the time, Jock is seen sleeping.
is a Wolfdog pirate who is mostly silent. His presence is for a one-time joke in which Karnage orders his crew to "fire at will," to which they obey before Karnage clarifies that he meant for them to fire at the Sea Duck and not Will since he is his second mate. He is briefly seen in the episode "In Search of Ancient Blunders".
Most of the crew members are wild and domestic dogs, including wolves.
This is possibly a pun on the term "dogfight" for mid-air battles, thus making all the pirate battles in the show literal dogfights.
According to show writer Jymn Magon, there was going to be a pirate based on a French poodle in the crew, but the character was eventually scrapped.
There is a newspaper clipping mentioning the Air Pirates in "Woo-oo!", the first episode of the 2017DuckTales reboot series. They finally showed up for the first of several appearances in "Sky Pirates...in the Sky!".
