Leonardo Da Vinci
'A bird is an instrument working according to a mathematical law. It lies within the power of man to make this instrument with all its motions'.
Although some of his ideas have been proven wrong. During the Renaissance Leonardo da Vinci thought seriously about flying machines.
Leonardo was correct in his assumption that human flight was possible, and some of his drawings still look as though they might fly in the eyes of modern humans who have seen flying machines all their lives.
He made the flight of birds the basis for his approach, and was certain that flapping of the wings in a rowing motion was the key to sustained flight. Leonardo was a rather secretive man, and his flight research appears to have been among his most secret pursuits. The ornithopter idea proved to have appeal to almost all researchers until flight was actually accomplished by the Wright Brothers with a fixed wing.
His drawings show later modifications that prove that he experimented with his craft, at least as models, and his scribbled notation about roiling waters in a mountain stream show that he was likely ultimately defeated in this endeavor by turbulence. He perceived the air as a “fluid” and understood the basics of fluid mechanics. Having just read a book on chaos theory, the new puzzle of modern physics, I am stricken by how quickly I thought of that in regard to Leonardo’s seemingly unrelated scribbled notation in the margin of his flying machine drawings.
Whether or not any of his designs ever flew, even as models, Leonardo undeniably earned himself a mention in virtually any history of heavier than air flight, and his ideas and flying machines are fascinating and a worthy part of any discussion of flight. They are even more amazing when one remembers that this work was just a tiny part of his work which included masterpiece paintings, casting cannon, designing military hardware, doing sculpture, architecture, city planning, optics, and much much more.
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