The Flying Machine
Leonardo Da Vinci kept the flying machine a secret. He designed the flying machine in a hidden laboratory behind the San Gottardo tower. The reason for that was that he wanted to stay away from the curiosity of people that could maybe observe it from the Duomo’s Tribuna. His plan was to reveal it only when sure it could work, which obviously never happened. A human being wouldn’t be able to uplift the weight of the machine because they don’t have enough energy, so his machine can’t work. Many military airplanes copied his mechanism. Leonardo Da Vinci explained that the wings of the flying machine must be 30 arms wide. Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machine had a wingspan that can fly 33 feet.
The pilot would lie face down in the centre of the design on a board. To power the wings, the pilot would pedal a crank connected to a rod-and-pulley system. The machine also had a hand crank for increased energy output, and a head piece for steering. As the busy pilot spins cranks with his hands and feet, the wings of the machine flaps.
Unfortunately, as da Vinci himself might have realised that a person could never have created enough power to get the device off the ground, so his design didn’t work out.
Leonardo Da Vinci kept the flying machine a secret. He designed the flying machine in a hidden laboratory behind the San Gottardo tower. The reason for that was that he wanted to stay away from the curiosity of people that could maybe observe it from the Duomo’s Tribuna. His plan was to reveal it only when sure it could work, which obviously never happened. A human being wouldn’t be able to uplift the weight of the machine because they don’t have enough energy, so his machine can’t work. Many military airplanes copied his mechanism. Leonardo Da Vinci explained that the wings of the flying machine must be 30 arms wide. Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machine had a wingspan that can fly 33 feet.
The pilot would lie face down in the centre of the design on a board. To power the wings, the pilot would pedal a crank connected to a rod-and-pulley system. The machine also had a hand crank for increased energy output, and a head piece for steering. As the busy pilot spins cranks with his hands and feet, the wings of the machine flaps.
Unfortunately, as da Vinci himself might have realised that a person could never have created enough power to get the device off the ground, so his design didn’t work out.