Inside the mind of Leonardo da Vinci
The Forum
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Leonardo Colman's Hand Glider
The most promising of the flying machines was what is called an ornithopter. Leonardo produces beautiful drawings, but goes a very long way to consider materials and lightness of structural elements. These flapping machines, which involve the legs and even unbending and bending, he comes to the conclusion these will not work. But if you look at where he in of what we would call a hand glider, he has shapes of wings which produce enormous lift. And it gave so much lift when judy leaden, the world hand glider champion, was piloting this thing, we had to use ropes to stop your going off into the sea.
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