Leonardo da Vinci sketched a helicopter-like aircraft with a rotor-like aerial screw in the 1480s.
The drawing appears in Leonardo’s manuscript known as the Codex Atlanticus. It shows a helical surface around a vertical framework, intended to rise if the screw rotated quickly enough. Leonardo compared the operating idea to a screw moving through a solid material, but the design had no engine or practical means of producing sufficient lift.
The machine is often called Leonardo’s aerial screw rather than a true helicopter. It was never built by Leonardo, and historians generally treat it as a visionary flight concept, not a working aircraft. Modern helicopters use powered rotors and aerodynamic blades, which differ substantially from the cloth-covered spiral proposed in the sketch.
Leonardo’s design is important because it shows that he was considering vertical flight centuries before powered rotorcraft appeared. It should not be confused with his ornithopter studies, which sought to imitate the flapping motion of bird wings.