Air Man - Lightning Lords & Fast Air

The "second half" of the first screen of Air Man is a long chasm with "Lightning Lords" on cloud platforms.

Intended Strategy

The intended strategy is to shoot the Lightning Lords and ride their platforms across.

The clouds spawn at a set "X-Coordinate" in the stage, so you can speed things up by frames by standing as far to the right as possible on a platform.

The Super Jump

On "Difficult" you may need extra mashing to take down the Lightning Lord fast enough

This method tries to speed up the last jumps of the chasm while riding platforms. It saves a few seconds but not a lot.

On the third platform, wait until you're above this little dip in the cloud. Then jump to the platform on your right. Hold Right.

You need to continue right, jumping to the next Lightning Lord cloud, mashing the enemy down without getting knocked back (and falling into the pit)

Walk directly across the platform (or take a small hop if you're brave) then full jump for the platform. You will likely need to pause to reset Mega Man's fall speed once or twice to make the jump.

The more you pause, the less time you're saving over just riding the platforms.

Fast Air

This is hard. Until you are chasing a high level time, this is not recommended

"Fast Air" and its cousin "Safe Fast Air" are methods of crossing this chasm with Item 1. This is the primary reason to do Heat Second and Air Third instead of the other way around.

(The images below are taken from Cyghfer's PB as of December 11, 2023)

From the end of the starting platforms, you can attempt to despawn the first Lightning Lord by wiggling around this spot. 

Most of this trick involves pressing A+B (Jump+Shoot) at the same time. This puts the follow on platforms at the lowest possible height. You have to do this to keep the platforms on the screen so Mega Man can land on them

Note that knock backs in Mega Man 2 happen according to the direction an enemy is facing, as opposed to Mega Man always going backwards. If you fail to deapawn the Lightning Lord, you need to get knocked to the right to stay on your platforms.

After three item 1s, you should reach the top of the screen. Jump to the edge of the next Cloud platform, without contacting the enemy.

If you are going for "Safe" fast air, aim to jump on the left half of the Lightning Lord. If the enemy turns right, Mega Man will be knocked back to the right, into the abyss. Getting knocked back in the direction the platform is moving will keep you in the air.

If you took damage, walk through the Lightning Lord. Otherwise, jump over the enemy and land on the right edge of the platform. Then proceed to use more A+B jumps with Item 1

Use two Item 1s to jump to the next Lightning Lord. Again, jump to the edge of the platform. Here, use one more Item 1 to jump over to the next Lightning Lord.

(You can just see Mega Man's left foot through the lag here, landing on the left edge of the platform.

One more Item 1 (it's in the clouds) and you can clear the chasm.