Model of Leonardo da Vinci's Glider

Model of Leonardo da Vinci's Glider made from lightweight wood, cloth, and string.

Leonardo da Vinci’s Glider was sketched along with many other flying machines and mechanisms that would power and control them.

One of the secondary images shows one of the drawings Leonardo da Vinci created while studying a Kite, a small, agile bird. He attempted to converted the Kites skeletal structure into a flying machine.

Although modern materials like aluminum and synthetic cloths were not available to him at the time, historians have recently attempted to build the flying machine using materials that da Vinci would have had available and found that it could actually fly with a couple of small modifications. The main modification to his glider design being the addition of a rudder to stabilize the yaw, or left and right movement of the glider.

Included is an image of his original sketches that led to the development of the glider, you can almost see his train of thought, this image shows and outstretched bat wing with its proportions noted.

He would often buy birds in local markets and study their wing structure, motion and shape; after studying the birds, he would set them free.

Another image shows a sketch of a bird's wing, but this time, da Vinci investigates the possibility of adding some mechanics to it, which would allow it to move like a bird wing.

Then there is an image that shows his sketch for the actual glider. In that sketch, you can see how da Vinci was inspired by the by wings of the earlier image. The sketch of the glider device shows where a person could actually lie into the machine. His waist would be inside the ring just below the wings, his hands would hold the two sticks coming down from the wings for directional control, and a flapping motion would be powered by the man forcing his legs downwards with his feet inside the two spurs. You can see this in the small insert to the left of the main picture.

For more information, please see: http://www.leonardodavincisinventions.com/inventions-for-flight/leonardo-da-vincis-glider/

and

http://sped2work.tripod.com/leoglider.html