Leonardo da Vinci designed an ornithopter as a flying machine with wing-like flapping surfaces.
The word ornithopter comes from Greek roots meaning “bird” and “wing.” Leonardo’s surviving drawings show a machine intended to imitate bird flight, with a human pilot powering large wings through mechanical movements. His studies of birds, bats, and wing motion informed the design, but the machine was never successfully flown.
Leonardo understood that a human could not simply flap wings like a bird without mechanical assistance. His drawings therefore explored pedals, levers, and ways to transfer the pilot’s muscle power to the wings. The design is often confused with his aerial screw, which resembles a helicopter rather than a flapping-wing craft.
Modern ornithopters use engines, motors, or other power sources, while Leonardo’s concept depended largely on human effort. His work remains important because it treated flight as an engineering problem based on close observation of nature.