Character suffered in flight (8)
I believe the answer is:
airborne
'in flight' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'character suffered' is the wordplay.
'character' becomes 'air' (air can mean a character or mood).
'suffered' becomes 'borne' (past tense of bear - to suffer or tolerate).
'air'+'borne'='AIRBORNE'
(Other definitions for airborne that I've seen before include "in the sky" , "as birds often are" , "In flight after taking off" , "Off the ground" , "(Of aircraft) flying" .)