The traditional 飛 drew a crane climbing with both wings spread. Simplified 飞 keeps a single wing mid-beat — two feathers on a rising stroke. Three strokes that never touch the ground.
飞 lifts everything it joins: 飞机 (flying machine — airplane), 飞快 (lightning-fast, with 快 you learned), 起飞 (take off). Chinese mythology is crowded with flight — dragons need no wings, immortals ride cranes — and 飞龙 (flying dragon) marks the emperor's ascendancy in the I Ching. Modern China's 飞天 (flying to the heavens) names its astronaut program, borrowing the flying apsaras of the Dunhuang cave murals.
One wing, two feathers, rising — to FLY.
The flying goddesses of Dunhuang (飞天) fly without wings — they ride ribbons of wind, a thousand years before airplanes borrowed the character.