Da Vinci Flying Machine

Da Vinci Flying Machine

View a sculpture that depicts the famous Da Vinci Flying Machine and features quotes from masters of astronomy at the Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch.

What's the Da Vinci Flying Machine?

 Leonardo Da Vince produced more than 35,000 words and 500 sketches dealing with flying machines, the nature of air, and bird flight. He makes insightful observations of gliding flight by birds and the way in which they balance themselves with their wings and tail. 

 These investigations of flight are scattered throughout the many da Vinci codices and manuscript collections, and he produced one short codex almost entirely on the subject in 1505-1506, the Codice sul volo degli uccelli (Codex on the Flight of Birds) 

 The Codex on the Flight of Birds outlines a number of observations and beginning concepts that would find a place in the development of a successful airplane in the early twentieth century. Centuries before any real progress toward a practical flying machine was achieved, the seeds of the ideas that would lead to humans spreading their wings germinated in the mind of da Vinci. (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, 2013) 

Source: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/f334975102c444a999402dd8fb33d8c1