Do Balrogs Have Wings?

[Mister Underhill]

But it's fairly clear that Balrogs were incarnated and thus bound to physical laws. Is there suspicion that the physics of flight in Middle-earth may differ from those in the modern world?

I don't know. Has anyone ever done any calculations on what Smaug's wingspan would need to be? What are the physics of Legolas being able to walk on top of snow? I feel comfortable discarding these suppositions about Balrogs, especially when they proceed from such little starting information. How tall, exactly, is a Balrog? What does it weigh? What anatomical device allows it to exude flame and shadow? You can't start doing math on completely conjectural figures and convince anyone who has any kind of a textual commitment to the wings debate.

The rebuttal to this line of reasoning that I have seen points to the definition of "chasm" which is described as "narrow."

Hmm... just glanced over the passage -- the bridge is "narrow", but I don't see the adjective applied to the chasm. If I've missed it, I'm sure you'll provide the cite.

Besides, I think it's the walls of the Hall that the wings are spread to, not the sides of the chasm, however big it is (we don't know). There's no textual evidence here at all as far as I can see, and not even enough of a basis for logical supposition or inference.