Up in the Sky!

Flight

• The motion of an object in or through a medium, especially through the earth's atmosphere or through space.

Who wouldn't like to fly? Some might say that those afraid of heights wouldn't want to, but I say 'Nay!" Fear of heights is merely a fear of something which we can't control. If one could fly there would be no reason to be afraid of heights, cause if you fall...well you won't fall long. But I digress.

Flight comes in many forms. You can fly in planes, on hang gliders, with a jet pack, from a sling shot, or through the eyes of another on video. Superheroes and super villains often fly either with wings or through some means of inner propulsion; control over wind, energy burst, or sheer force of will. I will discuss more of this in a minute, but something I have not see much mention of is that of how they survive it.

When you fly you generally travel higher up in the sky which means the air gets thinner and things get colder. Also, when you fly you are subject to air friction, and the faster you fly the more friction you are subjected to. All the superheroes that can fly as fast or faster than planes, how do they handle all these factors, especially those that wear those skimpy suits. For those with bird like wings, it is probably safe to assume they have the extra lung capacity and air sacs to accommodate breathing in the thinner colder atmosphere. For those that use a control over wind, why not assume they keep an unconscious flow of warm air coming over them. The jet pack or hang glider users would obviously be bundled up and wouldn't be moving faster than they could withstand. Those that use some sort of energy burst could be assumed to be surrounding themselves with enough to bleed off the excess friction and warming the air. Those that can just fly, with no visible physical cause are the oddities. I prefer to assume that because there is no visible cause for their flight, there is also an unseen cause for their ability to withstand the pressures of flight. I friction specific field that surrounds the flyer and protects them from those effects, but I think that they should still be effected by cold and thinning of air.

Moving on from the effects let's look at the means of flight. For this setting I will focus on wings, energy burst, and force of will. Beginning with the easiest, the energy burst, this requires the person to propel themselves much like a plane or a helicopter. Simple enough right? But what about the surrounding area when they take off or land? Would the expulsion of that much energy damage the surrounding area to say nothing of the people. And wouldn't this method of flight tire you out very quickly. Not to mention that your speed would be limited by how much energy you can put out quickly. Now wings present an all new set of problems. To lift your average human the wings would have to be enormous. The idea that Gail Gerstner-Miller (Creator of Peregrine from the Wild Card series) James Patterson (Creator of Maximum Ride) have run with is that of hollow yet strong bones, much like those of birds. This allows the wing span to not be gargantuan. Still, wings either would have to take the place of the arms, or have a whole separate set of muscles and lots of practice in controlling both arms and wings at the same time. And finally the tricky ones...those that fly under the force of their own will such as Superman and Nathan Petreli (from Heroes). I won't try to talk about how it works, because I'm sure there are thousands of ways it could be explained, but I would talk about the advantages and disadvantages. First off, there aren't muscles to use you simple will yourself into the air and there you are. This means of flight doesn't cause destruction nor would it drain your energy as much as the others. And the biggest advantage would be that you are most likely to be able to hover and take off quickly. All in all, while the wings would look cool, I think the most effective would be being able to fly under force of will. It offers more flexibility.