Leonardo Da Vinci Contribution To Aviation History - Research Paper Example

Leonardo Da Vinci – Contribution To Aviation History Leonardo Da Vinci is recognized as one of the most significant and well renowned painter that has ever existed in the history of arts. Leonardo Da Vinci used his profound imagination to work on various subjects and has imagined some of the elements of the 21st century before those elements even existed. He is well known for his most popular painting of the Mona Lisa. Another great achievement made by Leonardo Da Vinci was his most significant contribution to the industry of Aviation.

It would not be wrong to suggest that people are able to fly through airplanes due to the hard work of Leonardo Da Vinci. Leonardo Da Vinci was fascinated by the concept of flying human beings and this promoted him to develop thousands of words as well as hundreds of sketches that focused on the subject of aviation (Shagena, 2007, p.10). His ideas regarding the aviation have been presented in the form of several codex and one of the codes that specifically focuses on the aviation industry is recognized as the Codex on the Flight of Birds (Leonardo, 1977, p.215). His interest in the concept of aviation seems to be guided by the huge amount of in-depth work he has performed on the subject of militia and technology for military purposes.

Due to his focus on military based technological advancements he was able to develop the concept of aerial reconnaissance (Higham, 1998, p.21). He was the one who came up with the idea that there should be machine that can fly and help in attaining the objective of aerial reconnaissance. Most of Leonardo Da Vinci’s ideas were based on nature and he applied the same basis to the idea of developing an airplane or an aircraft that can fly with the assistance of flapping wins. This idea led him to design an aircraft which is recognized as ornithopters (Shagena, 2007, p.9). While developing this design he did not take into consideration that fact the human beings have limited amount of capacity to move their muscles.

But the design of two arms or wings flapping can be said to have provided a direction to aircraft developers in realizing that an aircraft needs wings to fly. A much realistic design and thought provided by Leonardo Da Vinci was on various concepts of aviation in his Codex on the Flight Birds (Leonardo, 1977, p.215). In Codex on the Flight Birds he focused on the importance of center of gravity and its use in lifting weight. His explanation of how birds move upwards while fighting against the wings is similar to the theory of stall which states that the angle at which birds flap elevates when their escalation in the air starts decreasing (Shagena, 2007, p.51). In this Codex he even focuses on how birds use the tool of their wings along with their tail in order to balance themselves in the air and the same concept was applied by the Wright brothers when they developed a design for aeronautical purposes (Shagena, 2007, p.96). Various other ideas that he worked on which were later applied to aviation includes the changing of the weight of an individual’s body and its impact on how they control aircrafts.

The Codex even focused on the significance attached with the lightweight of the structure of different aircrafts which was later used to design aircrafts.Works CitedHigham, R., Greenwood, J., & Hardesty, V. (1998). Russian aviation and air power in the twentieth century. London: Frank Cass.Leonardo, Richter, J., & Pedretti, C. (1977). The literary works of Leonardo da Vinci. Berkeley: University of California Press.Shagena, J. (2007). How the Wright brothers got it right. Bel Air, Md.: Jack L. Shagena.