Not to bury the point you're bringing up but Aerial Ace gets on a lot of non-flying Pokemon because it's specifically referring to a sword technique ("Swallow Return"), so you get a lot of Pokemon with sharp spikes, claws, horns or held instruments (bones, leeks) get it as much as you do birds getting it because they're birds. They likely decided to learn really hard into this interpretation to help spread an all-purpose not-too-strong flying move to a bunch of Pokemon.
Slaking gets it likely because Slakoth & Vigoroth get it: They have very notable sharp claws and Vigoroth in particular is a rowdy boy. It's the "Primeape gets Iron Tail despite not having a Tail" reasoning.
e: To hammer the point of trying to give Flying coverage to a bunch of Pokemon as a reason I want to point out that until Aerial Ace most flying moves were either (1) Very Definitely Bird Attacks that are hard (though not impossible) to give to other pokemon on a wide scale, (2) Aeroblast or (3) Bad
Wing Attack, Drill Peck, Fly (to an extent), Mirror Move ("Parrot Mimickry") & Sky Attack ("God Bird")are the former
Gust & Peck are the latter. Being 40 & 35 BP respectively when they wind up in other move pools its often as early game flavor.
Gen 3 introduced Aerial Ace, Air Cutter, & Bounce (also Feather Dance but see again "bird" reasoning). All three of these are more vague and able to be spread around but they put the focus on AA probably since it could be spread much more widely while the more specialized AC & Bounce landed on "filler". Once move tutors came back in gen 4 they got a little extra coverage, but AA got the job done so it wasnt as needed.
e2: Having written all this out can we admire how they clearly cared enough about Flying as a type that they tried to give it more generic moves so they could go to other Pokemon in gen 3 while Bug's biggest new additions were 2 moves exclusive to Volbeat and Silver Wind
Slaking gets it likely because Slakoth & Vigoroth get it: They have very notable sharp claws and Vigoroth in particular is a rowdy boy. It's the "Primeape gets Iron Tail despite not having a Tail" reasoning.
e: To hammer the point of trying to give Flying coverage to a bunch of Pokemon as a reason I want to point out that until Aerial Ace most flying moves were either (1) Very Definitely Bird Attacks that are hard (though not impossible) to give to other pokemon on a wide scale, (2) Aeroblast or (3) Bad
Wing Attack, Drill Peck, Fly (to an extent), Mirror Move ("Parrot Mimickry") & Sky Attack ("God Bird")are the former
Gust & Peck are the latter. Being 40 & 35 BP respectively when they wind up in other move pools its often as early game flavor.
Gen 3 introduced Aerial Ace, Air Cutter, & Bounce (also Feather Dance but see again "bird" reasoning). All three of these are more vague and able to be spread around but they put the focus on AA probably since it could be spread much more widely while the more specialized AC & Bounce landed on "filler". Once move tutors came back in gen 4 they got a little extra coverage, but AA got the job done so it wasnt as needed.
e2: Having written all this out can we admire how they clearly cared enough about Flying as a type that they tried to give it more generic moves so they could go to other Pokemon in gen 3 while Bug's biggest new additions were 2 moves exclusive to Volbeat and Silver Wind
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