Plus, you could say his "feathers" are made of some super-duper "unobtanium" alloy that defies normal physics and supports Falcon's weight during flight.
Just brainstorming here: you could still have a fairly faithful Falcon classic costume, by simply changing the white to black, and it would turn from cheesy disco to kick-ass in one fell swoop. I'm thinking the costume should wind up looking pretty close to Red Robin's winged look from Teen Titans here:
