DA VINCI: HELICOPTERO

Da Vinci made his mark in aeronautics through his work with ornithopters and helicopter models and it is said that they have begun the first sound experiments in search of a heavier practice than flying air. He was convinced that if man were able to realize his long-time dream of traveling in heaven above him, he would go through a flying machine based on the principle of the helicopter. A little over two hundred years later, his prediction proved true.

Leonardo Da Vinci is credited with the first thought of a vertical flight machine. His propeller scheme dated 1493, was not discovered until the 19th century. It consisted of a platform mounted by a helical screw driven by a rudimentary system, not unlike the rubber band aircraft propelled by model. Da Vinci notes State "if this instrument in the form of a screw were well made of linen, the pores of which had been arrested with starch, it is due, to which it turned sharply, rise in the air in a spiral." Its design, however, was never put to any use.