Leonardo da Vinci studied a flapping wing for a machine driven by a pilot’s legs.
Leonardo’s ornithopter studies explored human flight by imitating the flapping motion of birds and bats. Several drawings show a pilot lying or standing inside a wooden framework and operating wings through pedals, cranks or levers. The proposed mechanisms transferred leg and arm motion to large fabric-covered wings.
The designs were based on close observations of birds, bats and the movement of air. Leonardo understood that simply copying a bird’s wing was not enough: the machine also needed a light structure and a way to generate lift. Human muscles, however, cannot supply enough power to lift a person with a practical flapping aircraft of this kind, so Leonardo’s ornithopters were never successful as powered aircraft.
A flapping wing is different from a fixed wing, which produces lift as it moves through the air without repeatedly beating like a bird’s wing. Leonardo’s studies influenced the history of aviation even though they did not fly.