Some of the aeronautical concepts developed by Da Vinci are still valid today, after more than five hundred years.
More than five hundred years have passed since the death of what was possibly one of the most ahead of his time in the history of mankind: Leonardo da Vinci.
Leonardo was a Florentine polymath of the Italian Renaissance, well known for his many works in many different fields. However, like many geniuses, he did not receive the recognition he deserved until the end of his life, after failing again and again, consistently, failing better and better and failing better and better and failing better and failing better and failing better and failing better and failing better and failing better and failing better and failing better and failing better and failing better and failing better. turning every failure into a step towards successThe geniuses who go down in history are forged over a slow fire.
From a very young age he dreamt of flying, as did a few others before him and many others after him. Leonardo was one of the first people who engineered several machines to lift us off the ground. To this end, he studied in depth the flight of birds, the mechanics and anatomy of the wings, the arrangement of feathers, etc.
Among his many notes, he produced the following aeronautics-related designs:
- The "helicopter": He devised a machine with a helical screw design which, he calculated, could be raised using a rotor driven by four men achieving sufficient speed and inertia. Basically a transposition of Archimedes« screw idea, but using air as the fluid instead of water. The design had the flaw that the propeller offered penetration resistance, not lift. He later remedied this problem by making small-scale models. However, it was one of the first ideas that a »heavier-than-air" machine could fly.
- Wings: Da Vinci produced a compendium of wing designs. The idea was simple: to endow a person with articulated wings like a bird. His wings were based on anatomical studies of the wings of birds and bats, but on a larger scale. This prevented the person from being able to flap his wings at the speed needed to generate lift, so in order to fly, he had to opt for a fixed-wing idea, which led to his glider.
- The glider: He observed the flight of large birds and concluded that, in the absence of a human-powered mechanism, the most technologically feasible flight lay in gliding «without flapping the wings». He devised contraptions with a light wing-like structure similar to that of an unfurled wing, with light ribs much like the toes of bats, emulating the bone and cartilage structure in the limbs of larger birds. He called this device a «gigantic bird» and dreamed of testing it from Mount Ceceri, near Florence. This is the basis of what is known today as «hang gliding».
- The parachute: After analysing the importance of air resistance, currents and the atmosphere, Leonardo sketched the precursor of a parachute made of air bags. These air bags would form a kind of quadrangular pyramid, whose base and height would measure just over 7 metres. It was assumed that a man could jump with them from a certain height and not be injured. Modern recreations of this first parachute proved that Leonardo was right.
- The ornithopter: He designed a mechanism that was to be propelled by a crew member, who would step into a frame and use his arms to operate two lateral extensions like wings, similar to the use of oars in a boat. Eventually, he realised that human musculature was not powerful and versatile enough to lift his machine.
Leonardo fervently believed that the key to success lay in the air currents that would help his machines take flight just as birds glide from stream to stream without the need to flap their wings, he was indeed correct, at least in the science of his glider.
He also made notes concerning the materials that could be used in each design. He also mentioned that it would not be advisable to use metallic elements, which would add weight to the structures, as well as fragility in the joints where there could be cases of rust or even little flexibility when it comes to making movements. In this sense, he recommended the use of wood, tanned leather, silk ropes, etc.
Some of his designs have been tested today with mixed results. While all of them have shown the high level of study and detail with which Leonardo developed everything related to the possibility of flight, what is clear is that he was ahead of his time, with an attitude that was engraved as a motto on his stamp "Impedimento non mi piega (No obstacle bends me). Many of these designs served as a primitive idea for the airfoils that today seem as common as the air that lifts them.
