Flight studies

‘One who has tasted flight will walk with his eyes lifted to the sky, because there he has been, and there he would return.’
These words perfectly sum up Leonardo’s fascination with flight, a dream that never abandoned him throughout his entire life.

Leonardo began to be interested in flight during his first stay in Milan when, driven by youthful enthusiasm, he devoted himself to the design of flying machines with beating wings suitable for imitating the structure and propulsive movement of birds’ wings. After returning to Florence at the start of the 1500s, he devoted himself to the observation of birds, studying their flight techniques and bodily structure. As a result he came to the understanding that a human would be incapable of producing sufficient energy for moving the wings, so that flight by means of beating wings, or mechanical flight, could not be achieved. He therefore oriented himself toward hovering flight, or gliding flight, in which the propulsion would be generated entirely by available air currents. Thus were born the delta-wing device—similar to the modern hang glider, which flies by exploiting rising air currents—and the flying sphere, carried about according to wind direction.

In order to verify that weather conditions were suitable for gliding flight, Leonardo also designed certain scientific instruments, like the hygrometer and the anemometer; whereas for aerial navigation, he conceived an inclinometer that could inform the pilot of the proper horizontal position of the flying machine in relation to the ground.