Airplane! (titled Flying High! in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan, and the Philippines; "L'aereo più pazzo del mondo" in Italy) is a 1980 American satirical comedy film directed and written by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker and released by Paramount Pictures. It stars Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty and features Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Lorna Patterson. The film is a parody of the disaster film genre, particularly the 1957 Paramount film Zero Hour!, which it follows fairly closely, with superficial changes. For example, Ted Striker was Ted Stryker in the older film. The film is known for its use of absurd and fast-paced slapstick comedy, including visual and verbal puns and gags.

A fixed-wing aircraft is an aircraft capable of flight using wings that generate lift due to the vehicle's forward airspeed and the shape of the wings. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from rotary-wing aircraft in which wings rotate about a fixed mast and ornithopters in which lift is generated by flapping wings.