Leonardo da Vinci’s ornithopter was a wing-flapping flying machine modeled on the flight of birds.
Leonardo studied birds, bats, and the movement of air while developing several flying-machine designs. An ornithopter uses mechanical wings that flap like a bird’s wings, rather than relying on a fixed wing or a rotating rotor. Leonardo’s drawings show human-powered versions in which a pilot would operate pedals, levers, or other mechanisms connected to the wings.
The designs were based on careful observation but underestimated the amount of power a human could produce. A person in the machine would not have enough strength to flap wings of the required size and speed and generate sustained flight. Leonardo also explored gliding and screw-based concepts, but these were different categories of flying machine.
No Leonardo ornithopter is known to have flown. The designs remain important because they combine anatomical observation with mechanical experimentation. Modern ornithopters have achieved brief or controlled flights using engines, motors, or elastic power, but those successes do not prove that Leonardo’s human-powered machines were practical.