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Flight is one of the most commonly seen abilities in fiction with flight even being one of the abilities that people primarily say when asked, “If you could have any power what would it be.” Due to its omnipresent nature in fiction flight is most commonly hand waved with some sort of bioelectric aura/antigravity generation. However, I was curious on whether flight would even be possible for an animal the weight of a human.

I thought that flight might work via the ability to generate ion winds on the user propelling them off the ground. Presuming that the user is able to generate extremely high voltages to ionize the air and create ion wind. Assuming these requirements would the user be able to fly

  • The user can generate winds on the level of an ef5 tornado.
  • They can choose any direction to point these winds but they can’t summon the wind at any random point. So they can use the winds to propel themselves like a jet pack but they can’t summon them in some sort of mechanism.
  • They are resistant to the wind generated by their powers.

So would this method of flight work and if not what would need to be changed to make it work?

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  • $\begingroup$ Are you handwaving how the user gets all the energy for the ion wind generation? Because whatever you do, lifting your whole body drains energy. How much fuel does it take to lift your own weight with any flying mechanism and how much energy that uses. Not to mention using winds might transfer just a percentage of the energy into lifting you up. These people would run into rocket equations, as they need to store energy to lift themselves up, but this energy needs to be lifted up as well... $\endgroup$
    – Trioxidane
    Commented May 1 at 10:44
  • $\begingroup$ Yeah I am handwaving the ion generation $\endgroup$
    – Coolcats112
    Commented May 1 at 11:40

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It wouldn't be flying, would be surfing the ionic winds

As the name of the power says it generates wind, firstly how would he take off? It would be preferable if he had a basic superhero kit such as increased strength and endurance. Because his power is to generate wind, if he wants to fly out of an alley, the amount of wind he generates can damage the alley, so with his super force he could jump to the rooftop and take off with his wind.

So surfing, his "flying" ability is closer to Batman than to Superman, without a tool (like the Batman cape) or other power he would be thrown into the atmosphere, like this.

And it's not a question of raw power, but technique, of course, he could make an ef5 tornado, but it would be more efficient to use the same principle of some ionic thruster prototypes and accelerate the same wind several times.

Finally, the user would have some consequential powers because of that, like static shock, and he would need a way to control the wind, perhaps a wingsuit.

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  • $\begingroup$ I mean that he can generate winds on the level of an ef5 tornado not actually create an ef5 tornado $\endgroup$
    – Coolcats112
    Commented Apr 30 at 23:59
  • $\begingroup$ My point is if he can generate that enormous quantity of wind with ions, the enormous quantity of electrons that he generates could create other effects, maybe lighting). But I studied the disaster of Chernobyl and the alteration of the sole with ions, so he could do the same thing with his powers. $\endgroup$
    – Khorzin
    Commented May 1 at 0:08
  • $\begingroup$ Good point but and the ionic thruster seems cool to $\endgroup$
    – Coolcats112
    Commented May 1 at 0:44
  • $\begingroup$ Yeah it's pretty cool, but it has some crazy possibilities, I recommend that you read the run of 2021 of Static Shock. $\endgroup$
    – Khorzin
    Commented May 1 at 0:59
  • $\begingroup$ Ok thanks for the recommendation $\endgroup$
    – Coolcats112
    Commented May 1 at 1:19

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