This article was written by Eric Nordstrom, our late business partner and friend. We have kept it as he wrote it, in his memory.
Watching the trailer for Batman vs Superman, Dawn of Justice, I noticed that Batman has a newly-designed Batwing for the movie and it looks awesome. I also noticed that the folks who designed it gave it swept wings and winglets. Winglets are those vertical parts that shoot up at the tips of the wings. They are a fairly recent addition to aircraft designs but what they do is pretty amazing.
Earlier versions of the Batwing, such as the 1989 version when Michael Keaton played Batman, had a cockpit situated between two wings and dual vertical stabilizers. This shape provided people on the ground the chance to see the “bat” shape when it flew upward in front of a full moon. This version was a flying disc of sorts and it bears a resemblance to the F-117 Nighthawk, which was introduced to the Air Force in 1983. The Nighthawk had a max speed of 617 mph, so it was in the same speed range as most commercial jet airliners. Indeed, this film did not require Batman to break the sound barrier, so the Batwing shape they chose worked great.
Batman vs Superman aircraft also differs from “The Bat”, of Dark Knight Rises. It was essentially a combination of the CV-22 Osprey, the F-35B Lightning II, and the AV-8B Harrier. It often flew more like a helicopter than a true airplane and could easily hover while unleashing a barrage of weaponry. This was in 2012 and Batman was played by Christian Bale.
Superman has always been the man of steel. Originally, he was able to leap tall buildings. Modern Superman films have evolved the character to show how his powers could be used in various situations. In Superman III, Evil Superman was used to show what might happen if he had no morals. There is no logical reason for him to be able to fly. He comes from Krypton, and the reason for his super powers has evolved over the years, but now we are told they are because Earth has a yellow sun. Krypton had a red star before it was destroyed.
When Superman takes off, he typically throws one or both arms into the air and leaps. When he wants to fly faster, he has both arms out in front of him. His hands are typically balled into fists, but there are times when his palms are open. When he wants to stop, he leans upright and slows before stopping. He can hover, and he can move in any direction from the hovering position.
Here at Midgard Scientific, safety is an important factor with every job. Look, we are nondestructive testing technicians at heart, so we are more or less nerds who cowboy’d up. So while we are prepared to get to work and get dirty doing it, we won’t sacrifice safety or quality. As we are nerdly at heart we can’t help but compare the various safety equipment used by each of these superheroes in Batman vs Superman.
Superman uses no safety equipment. He wears a blue and red Spandex-type suit, red boots, and a red cape. The Spandex decreases drag and the cape simply flaps in the wind. His belt does not appear to adhere to ISO 9001, and his boots do not have steel toes. If Superman were an NDT inspector, I can picture him telling the Quality Manager, “But I’m made of steel, so I don’t need steel toe boots.”
Batman, on the other hand, uses a lot of safety equipment. This character has evolved over the years as well. Decades ago, he wore an outfit similar to Superman’s, but he always had that belt. Until recently, Batman’s belt was his saving grace. In The Dark Knight, the character was militarized and Bruce Wayne spent a lot of money on some pretty cool vehicles. But safety was always his primary concern. After all, he is human. Nice work Batman. He wears a helmet, body armor, and I bet those are steel toe boots as well. His cape is made of “memory cloth”, and it can stop all sorts of things thrown at him.
We already discussed Superman’s flight characteristics. He can fly fast enough to orbit the earth at speeds that cause our planet to reverse its direction of spin so time moves backward and he can save Lois Lane, but he still needs a few yards to come to a stop when he’s at a normal cruising speed.
Later this month, we will see how Batman flies the newest rendition of the Batwing. I mentioned the winglets that are on this latest Batwing. To understand their importance, we need to understand how we got to where we are today with aircraft design.
Though we take for granted many of the aspects of flight within Batman vs Superman, it is important to remember that we haven’t been flying for very long. On December 17th, 1903, the Wright brothers successfully made their first flight in a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft. Its name was the Wright Flyer. This aircraft was designed with two pairs of parallel wings that warped with the use of cables and pulleys to control the direction of flight. They chose this design after watching the way birds moved their wings during flight.
More rigid wings were soon developed and aircraft could be built with a single pair of wings or, in the case of biplanes, two pairs of wings. In virtually all cases, these wings extended straight out from the fuselage.
This design worked well until the invention of the jet engine. Jet engines were much more powerful than the older propeller style engines. In 1917, the British biplane called the Bristol F.2 had a maximum airspeed of 123 mph.
In 1959, the North American X-15 made its first flight. The X-15 would go on to hold the world record for the highest speed ever flown by a manned aircraft by travelling at 4,520 mph or about Mach 6. That’s six times the speed of sound, and it happened on October 3rd 1967. Interestingly, this flight went up to an altitude of 19.3 miles (101,904 feet). The atmosphere is so thin at this altitude that flight controls had little effect, so the X-15 used rocket thrusters to control trajectory. This was essentially a manned rocket that was lifted into the air on the wing of a modified B-52 and fired at altitude. Nonetheless, the pilot was able to control it during the flight.
From the first flight to the world’s highest-speed flight took 64 years. During this time, the people who built aircraft wings had to solve a number of problems as the speed increased, and most of these problems dealt with how the air flows over the wing at different speeds.
The first wings were basically straight and flat. Then, engineers found out that using an airfoil wing shape that had a flat bottom and a rounded top could be advantageous. By rounding the top of the wing, an area of lower pressure is created on the top of the wing to provide lift. This design worked great until the jet engines became powerful enough to push the aircraft even faster.
The majority of aircraft flown today are considered subsonic because they fly at speeds that are below the speed of sound. There are some aircraft that are transonic. These aircraft fly just below the speed of sound but a portion of the aircraft experiences airflow that is greater than the speed of sound.
Unless they alter physics in the Batman vs Superman movie, the speed of sound through air is approximately 750 mph. This is also referred to as Mach 1.
How can an aircraft experience different airspeeds at the same time?
The airfoil shape with the rounded top and the flat bottom was a great way to increase the speed of the air that was passing over the wing without changing the speed of the air that was passing under the wing. This was originally a great way to increase lift, but that was before we had engines capable of reaching higher speeds. As an aircraft approaches Mach 1, the air above the wing actually reaches Mach 1 before the rest of the aircraft does. This is called the Critical Mach Number. For example, if the aircraft is traveling at Mach 0.72 and the air speed on the top of the wing is traveling at Mach 1, the Critical Mach Number would be 0.72 for this aircraft.
Why does this matter? Doesn’t the additional lift still help the aircraft?
As it turns out, when you are traveling at this speed, lift isn’t as much of an issue. The main concern as an aircraft approaches and then exceeds Mach 1 is how the airflow over the top of the wing behaves. When the wings are positioned straight out from the fuselage, the air creates a shockwave that makes controlling the aircraft very difficult.
Think about the last time you saw a commercial airliner, did the wings go straight out? Probably not. By sweeping the wings back so the wingtip is aft of where the wing connects to the fuselage, airplane manufacturers were able to delay the occurrence of the shockwaves until they were farther back on the wing by effectively pushing the air flow sideways away from the fuselage, which greatly improved stability. Most aircraft in service today have a wing design that is swept back like this even if they don’t travel at Mach speed because it makes the aircraft easier to control during flight. Most commercial airliners travel at 500 knots, which is around 575 mph.
Why don’t all aircraft have this wing design?
Artistic liberty is taken in the Batman vs Superman movie, but in real life there’s no free lunch in aviation. If you solve one problem, you typically create another one. Sweeping the wings back improved control at cruising speed and altitude. It also made flying more difficult at slower speeds. This is why aircraft with swept wings need larger flaps. Takeoff and landing are the two periods of flight when the aircraft is traveling the slowest. Without larger flaps, the aircraft would need to travel much faster to avoid stalling. If you’ve ever landed at night in a storm, it was probably scary enough. Imagine if the airplane was going even faster. Aircraft that don’t travel at high speeds don’t need flaps because they don’t have swept wings. Next time you go to an airshow, look at the stunt biplanes. There are usually at least a few. The pilots can control these aircraft at very slow speeds because of the shape of the wings.
Modern fighter jets have small swept wings. These are designed for supersonic speeds, so lift generation is not a primary concern. When an F-16 comes in for landing, the pilot must maintain a minimum speed that is much faster than an airliner would so the jet doesn’t stall. The wings are also much flatter, though they still have the airfoil shape, than an airliner’s wings so the shockwave is less of an issue. The F-16 Fighting Falcon has flaperons, which are a combination of flaps and ailerons. These are smaller than conventional flaps, so they help at slower speeds, but not as much as flaps on an airliner, hence the faster speeds on takeoff and landing.
So what about the winglets in the Batman vs Superman movie?
Winglets (vertical wingtips) decrease drag by recovering some of the vortex energy at the wingtip. This has the added benefit of decreasing the vortex energy that the wings leave behind. A vortex is a tornado of air that spins off the wingtips of aircraft. They are created by the pressure differential between the top and bottom of the wing. Remember, we like lower air pressure on top to provide lift, but the greater this differential is, the more powerful the vortex. The vortices continue to spin behind the aircraft and fall through the air until they dissipate. By installing winglets, some of this vortex energy stays with the wing and increases the fuel efficiency. This means that the newest Batwing gets better gas mileage than the one Michael Keaton flew. Sweet.
Remember when Maverick lost Goose in the movie Top Gun? He flew his F-14 Tomcat through a Mig’s “jet wash.” The F-14A models had engines that were susceptible to stalling if the airflow through the engine was disturbed. This scene in the movie was plausible if Maverick was flying an A-model. The Mig in the movie was actually an F-5 and it didn’t have winglets. So as soon as Ice Man pulled out, Maverick went right into the turbulence.
What does this mean for Batman vs Superman?
Well, I’m not sure how susceptible Superman is to vortices but if he approaches the Batwing from behind in the movie, there will be a lot less turbulence now that the winglets have been added.
It should be noted that the Wright Brothers worked diligently and made their mark on history. But to be accurate, Clément Ader (1841-1926), a self-educated inventor and the pioneer of flight, took flight before the Wright Brothers. In 1890, his self-propelled aircraft flew a full 160 feet. Interestingly, Clément modeled his aircraft wings after the bat.
[Editor’s note, 2026: historians dispute this claim. Ader’s 1890 hop is not generally accepted as a sustained, controlled flight, and the Wright brothers’ 1903 flights are widely recognized as the first.]
Next time you see an airplane, take a look at the wing design. We have been flying for a little over 100 years. Modern structural efficiencies continue to improve each year, but the basic design that evolved over the first 64 years of manned flight is still around today, and it works pretty well. I’m not sure how Batman vs Superman will end, but I’m sure there will be some exciting flight scenes.
Batman vs Superman is scheduled to appear at a theater near you March 25, 2016.
[Editor’s note, 2026: the original article ended with links to the film’s 2016 ticket and social media pages. Those pages no longer exist, so the links have been removed. The images that illustrated the original could not be recovered and have not been replaced.]