Da Vinci's Flying Dreams Took Off Early

Leonardo da Vinci didn’t just paint the Mona Lisa — he imagined flying before the Wright brothers were even a twinkle in history’s eye.

In the 1480s, da Vinci filled notebooks with designs for flying machines. One looked like a giant corkscrew meant to lift off like a helicopter. Another resembled a bat’s wings stretched across a wooden frame — his version of a glider. And yes, he even designed a parachute made of linen and wooden poles.

He didn’t just doodle; he calculated lift, weight, and air resistance. That’s like inventing a spaceship before people knew how to drive.

Here’s a wild visual: imagine being in Renaissance Italy, watching da Vinci launch a spiral-shaped helicopter into the air — powered by muscle, not engines. It probably didn’t fly, but the idea did. And it would later inspire inventors for centuries.

Fun fact: Da Vinci’s parachute was tested in 2000 using his original design. It worked.

Even wilder? Birds were his teachers. He spent hours watching how wings worked, sketching feathers, and dissecting birds to understand flight mechanics. Basically, he was doing aeronautics 400 years before the word existed.

Bonus Fact: Leonardo didn't have a surname in the modern sense. His full name was 'Lionardo di ser Piero da Vinci' meaning 'son of Piero from Vinci' - the Tuscan village in which he was born.