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Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was one of the great minds of the Renaissance. Although most famous for his contributions to art, he was also proficient in mathematics, anatomy, botany, physics, and engineering. His flying machine illustrations are some of the earliest documented design concepts for human flight.
Il Cigno (The Swan) is an ornithopter, a machine shaped like a bird that is held aloft and propelled by wing movements. The pilot pulls the wings down by pushing with their arms and legs, while air pressure pushes the wings back up. The moveable tail, actuated by the pilot's body movements, controls pitch and yaw during gliding flight. However, ornithopters were technological dead ends; human musculature and metabolism are woefully inadequate for the job. A bird has some 60 percent of its weight devoted to the muscles that operate its wings, a huge lung capacity to sustain prolonged flight, and hollow, lightweight bones. Still, Il Cigno could make a respectable glider and with a brave, strong, and very light pilot, it might achieve a couple of wing flaps during a flight.
Il Cigno was built by Sandy McAusland, John Grove, and Merle Haley in 2002-2004, in consultation with Leonardo experts. It is not an exacting reproduction of one of Leonardo's sketches. The builders concluded that Leonardo's sketches were simply a thinking process, never intended to be made into working machines. Leonardo himself likely knew that he had not solved the problem; the wide variety of designs and unfinished drawings tend to support this conclusion. His sparing collection of human flight studies moved the dream of flight toward practical design, but much additional work would need to be done by others centuries later.
No modern materials or manufacturing techniques were used to build Il Cigno. Wood dowels and rawhide fasten the members together. The structure is white oak, a Mediterranean wood commonly used during Leonardo's time. This interpretation of Leonardo’s vision was presented to the Museum in 2004.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was one of the great minds of the Renaissance. Although most famous for his contributions to art, he was also proficient in mathematics, anatomy, botany, physics, and engineering. His flying machine illustrations are some of the earliest documented design concepts for human flight.
Il Cigno (The Swan) is an ornithopter, a machine shaped like a bird that is held aloft and propelled by wing movements. The pilot pulls the wings down by pushing with their arms and legs, while air pressure pushes the wings back up. The moveable tail, actuated by the pilot's body movements, controls pitch and yaw during gliding flight. However, ornithopters were technological dead ends; human musculature and metabolism are woefully inadequate for the job. A bird has some 60 percent of its weight devoted to the muscles that operate its wings, a huge lung capacity to sustain prolonged flight, and hollow, lightweight bones. Still, Il Cigno could make a respectable glider and with a brave, strong, and very light pilot, it might achieve a couple of wing flaps during a flight.
Il Cigno was built by Sandy McAusland, John Grove, and Merle Haley in 2002-2004, in consultation with Leonardo experts. It is not an exacting reproduction of one of Leonardo's sketches. The builders concluded that Leonardo's sketches were simply a thinking process, never intended to be made into working machines. Leonardo himself likely knew that he had not solved the problem; the wide variety of designs and unfinished drawings tend to support this conclusion. His sparing collection of human flight studies moved the dream of flight toward practical design, but much additional work would need to be done by others centuries later.
No modern materials or manufacturing techniques were used to build Il Cigno. Wood dowels and rawhide fasten the members together. The structure is white oak, a Mediterranean wood commonly used during Leonardo's time. This interpretation of Leonardo’s vision was presented to the Museum in 2004.
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