Man with Wings

A biography of the Aeronautical Engineer, and artistically talented Anatomist, Leonardo da Vinci. Today most people remember Leonardo for his few surviving anatomically correct works of art. They forget that Leonardo spent most of his life experimenting and designing automated machines. He constantly observed the mechanics of nature. He dissected human bodies, carefully recording the workings of muscles and organs. He studied optics, sound and light, gravity, heliocentric celestial mechanics, physical geology, fluid dynamics, and especially the flight of birds. Leonardo believed that machines could be built, using levers, gears, and pulleys, that could reproduce the efforts of men, birds, and fish; and be used to create huge civil engineering projects. Some of his unique creations, designed years before the birth of their famous so-called "inventors", included pre-fabricated housing, practical indoor plumbing, armored cars, machine guns, armor clad ships, submarines, lenses, mechanical music machines, robots, transmission gears, roller bearings, brakes, streamlining, aeroplane propellers, parachutes, and gliders.