Exploration
Da Vinci’s Flapping Flugtag Designs
Can you beat Leonardo’s creations with your flying machine?
Painter Leonardo Da Vinci may be best known for the Mona Lisa but he was also a madcap inventor who designed some very early flying machines, including ‘ornithopters’, parachutes and gliders.
Facsimile of a Drawing of an Airscrew
© Corbis
Born way back in 1452 in Vinci, Italy, Leonardo drew up designs that were out there in his Renaissance times, including a diving suit, a humanoid robot, a self-propelled car, war machines including a cannon, machine gun, portable bridge and armoured car… and an automated meat rotisserie spit.
Reconstruction of Da Vinci's Flying Machine
© Corbis
But flight was his lifelong love affair, and he studied birds, insects and bats as he tried to find a way for man to fly.
In a stonking 6,000 pages of journals, Leo wrote: “What is a bird? An instrument that works according to mathematical laws, and it should be within the power of man to make such an instrument.”
His ornithopter ‘wing-flapping’ device had a wingspan of 10 metres and was made of pine wood covered in raw silk. The pilot would lie, face-down, on a board, pedalling to power the wings, while using a hand crank to increase the energy AND wearing a headpiece to steer.
The machine had no engine - so it’s unlikely it would ever have made it off the ground even if Leo had got around to building it.
Ornitottero Verticale' by 'Da Vinci - the genius'
© Corbis
His design for a glider, on the other hand, flew successfully when it was recently replicated, with just the addition of a rudder. Previously the glider would have veered sideways – not the best idea when jumping off a cliff.
So when you’re designing your Flugtag flyer, think back to Leonardo Da Vinci – his scribblings could help you with the machine design and the aerodynamics, if not the dance medley.
As Da Vinci wrote: “When the great bird takes its first flight it will amaze the universe… and bring eternal glory to the nest where it was born.”
Red Bull Flugtag comes back to Dubai Creek Park on 27 November 2015 after a nine-year break.
