Leonardo da Vinci’s human-powered flying machine with flapping wings is an ornithopter.
An ornithopter is an aircraft designed to fly by flapping wings, imitating birds or bats. Leonardo studied bird flight and made several sketches of machines in which a human pilot would move large wings through a mechanical system.
Leonardo’s designs were not powered by an engine. He generally assumed that a pilot’s arms or legs could operate the wings, but human muscle power is not sufficient to sustain the flight of a large flapping aircraft. His work therefore belongs to the history of aviation concepts rather than successful powered flight.
An ornithopter is different from Leonardo’s aerial screw, which used a rotating helical surface, and from his parachute, which was intended to slow a descent. The word describes the flight mechanism, not one single Leonardo drawing.