Leonardo da Vinci’s flapping-wing flying-machine design is commonly called an ornithopter.
An ornithopter is an aircraft that generates lift by flapping wings, imitating birds or bats. Leonardo studied bird flight and sketched several machines with large wings, frames, and human-powered mechanisms. His drawings belong to his broader investigations of air, anatomy, balance, and mechanical motion.
Leonardo’s proposed machine was not a powered aircraft in the modern sense. Human muscle alone would not have supplied enough energy for a practical, man-carrying flapping aircraft of the kind he imagined. The design is therefore best understood as an early engineering concept rather than a successful flying vehicle.
An ornithopter is sometimes confused with Leonardo’s helical aerial screw, which is associated with vertical-flight ideas. The two designs use different principles: the ornithopter flaps wings, while the aerial screw was intended to rise through rotating motion.