Leonardo da Vinci designed a glider with a rigid wing inspired partly by the structure of a bat’s wing.
His flight studies examined how birds and bats used membranes, joints, and tail surfaces to control movement. Some drawings show a pilot supported by a wooden framework and a broad wing intended to generate lift while moving through the air.
Leonardo’s glider concept was not an aircraft known to have flown successfully. A glider differs from an ornithopter because it remains aloft by using lift from forward motion rather than by continuously flapping its wings. It also differs from a parachute, whose main purpose is to slow descent.