I am writing a story with winged humanoid characters who are capable of flight. However, it has been a while since I have been able to do some writing on this project, and I feel like I've lost my touch for writing flight scenes. Does anybody have any strategies/tips/advice/etc. for writing realistic (in terms of sensory information and descriptions) of flying scenes, including takeoffs, landings, acrobatics, etc. My goal with this story is to give the readers a sense of being in the air right along with the characters, so that they can form a better connection with these characters. Plus, why have flight-capable characters at all if I'm not going to use that aspect of the story to involve the audience? Obviously, I've been taking wind, currents, thermals, etc. into account as well as the time of day and weather and what is visible to the character(s) based on their altitude and location. But I can't seem to find a formula or any sort of go-to writing exercise to help myself draft and develop these scenes. And I can't exactly fly and take notes. So far, I've been taking inspiration from How to Train Your Dragon (1 & 2), Guardians of Ga'Hoole, and roller coasters. I've been scouring the internet, but I haven't been able to find anything useful to my specific needs (characters with winged bodies, not airplanes/helicopters). Thanks in advance for the help
Tobias in the Animorph series got trapped as a red tail hawk, and K A Applegate seemed to know how to write him flying around pretty well. Perhaps you should look for someone who has written extensively about flying creatures in a fictional capacity. You could try chatting with @Kata_Misashi who was working on a story about avian people.
Maybe book yourself a trial flight in a small aircraft or, better, a glider. That'll give you at least a familiarity with the sensations of being in and moving through the sky in a way that sitting in the back of a pressurised airliner never will. It's not the same as flying with one's own body, but it's as close as humans get to actual flying rather than dramatic plummeting. A glider in particular will give you more of a feel for what the air is doing and older glider pilots will tell you all kinds of things to watch out for to tell you where the good lift or the bad sink will be. After a while flying a proper aircraft with mechanical controls (not that boring fly-by-wire stuff) the boundary between you and the machine starts to feel a bit porous as every movement requires real effort from you and every bump and twitch of the control surfaces is felt in your body through the controls. They become extra limbs, almost. It's a very cool feeling and it would be short step to filtering the machine out of the writing altogether, I suppose.