Leonardo da Vinci studied an ornithopter, a flying machine intended to imitate a bird’s flapping wings.
Leonardo’s bird-flight studies led him to examine wing shape, feathers, muscles, and the movement of air. His ornithopter concepts used mechanical structures that a person might operate to flap wings. The word ornithopter comes from Greek roots meaning “bird” and “wing.”
An ornithopter differs from a glider, which stays aloft with fixed wings, and from a helicopter, which uses rotating blades. Leonardo’s surviving designs were theoretical and did not achieve powered human flight. Human muscles alone cannot provide the power needed for a practical aircraft of the proposed scale.
Even so, the studies were scientifically important. Leonardo observed birds directly and treated flight as a problem of anatomy, force, balance, and air resistance rather than as a purely mythical idea.