Leonardo da Vinci studied an ornithopter, a flying machine powered by flapping wings.
The word ornithopter comes from Greek roots meaning “bird” and “wing.” Leonardo investigated birds’ anatomy and flight, recording observations about wing movement, balance, air resistance, and the relationship between weight and lift. His proposed machines generally used wings that a human operator would move through mechanical linkages.
Leonardo’s ornithopter concepts were not powered aircraft in the modern sense. A person could not generate enough sustained muscle power to make a large machine fly, and the proposed structures were too heavy for the available materials. His research was still significant because it treated flight as an engineering and scientific problem rather than as a purely speculative idea.
An ornithopter differs from Leonardo’s aerial screw: the former uses flapping wings, while the latter uses a rotating helical surface. Leonardo also considered gliding and parachute designs, so “Leonardo’s flying machine” can refer to several distinct concepts.