Leonardo da Vinci’s screw-shaped flying-machine design is called the aerial screw.
Leonardo sketched the aerial screw around 1489. Its linen-covered, reed-framed helical surface was intended to rotate and push against the air, somewhat like the rotor of a modern helicopter. The drawing appears in Leonardo’s notebooks, where he explored whether a large spiral could generate enough lift to rise.
The aerial screw was not a working aircraft. Leonardo did not build a full-scale prototype, and the materials and human power available in the Renaissance could not have produced the required lift. It is therefore best described as a visionary aircraft concept, not the first helicopter.
The design is often called a “helicopter” in popular writing because of its appearance, but “aerial screw” is the canonical name associated with Leonardo’s sketch. Modern helicopters use powered rotors and aerodynamic principles that differ substantially from the proposed spiral rotor.