Leonardo da Vinci studied an ornithopter, a bird-inspired aircraft intended to fly with flapping wings.
The word ornithopter combines Greek roots meaning “bird” and “wing.” Leonardo filled his notebooks with observations of birds, bats and the mechanics of flight. Several of his proposed machines used wings that a human pilot might move through pedals, levers or other mechanical linkages.
Leonardo understood that birds generated lift and thrust through coordinated wing movements, but a human body could not supply enough power for a practical flapping aircraft of his proposed scale. None of his ornithopter designs is known to have flown.
The idea differs from Leonardo’s glider studies, which relied on fixed wings and moving air rather than repeated flapping. Modern ornithopters have been built as small radio-controlled aircraft, but Leonardo’s work remained primarily a theoretical and observational investigation.