Beschreibung
40 p. Einband berieben und mit Randläsuren, zwei Bleistiftanstreichungen im Buch / Binding rubbed and with marginal tears, two pencil annotations in the book. - LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452 1519) Perhaps the greatest universal genius of history, Leonardo da Vinci (1452- 1519) provides an absorbing chapter in aeronautical history. He was the first man of high scientific attainments to investigate the problems of flight, and although a few of his aeronautical notes and drawings may have been lost, the bulk seem to have survived, and it is fairly clear where his thoughts and feelings lay. Most of his work dealt with flapping-wing aircraft (ornithopters), and his concern with the human imitation of birds and bats amounted to an obsession. As a result of his emotional rather than rational approach to flying, he did not on the whole subject it to the disciplined scrutiny he applied to other of his scientific activities, although his aeronautical work was shot through with sparks of brilliant and prophetic ingenuity. Through no fault of his own, Leonardo had no direct influence upon the development of flying, for the world knew nothing of his aeronautical work until late in the nineteenth century, when both practical and theoretical aeronautics were bringing near the final achievement of human flight (see below). One must therefore view Leonardo in what is virtually a historical vacuum. He left a large body of manuscripts amounting to something above 35,000 words and over 500 sketches dealing with flying machines, the nature of the air, and bird flight. This corpus also includes one small complete work on bird flight, Sul Volo deg/i Uccelli (dated 1505) in the Turin Library. The rest of the material consists of a mass of scattered notes and sketches, most of them contained in Manuscripts A to M in the Library of the Institut de France in Paris, and in the great Codice Atlantico in the Ambrosiana Library at Milan. Contrary to popular belief, Leonardo did not base most of his aeronautical speculations and designs on a careful study of bird and bat flight, but on comparatively superficial observations; for his detailed study of birds came after, not before, the famous designs for ornithopters; and there is evidence that, as he learnt more of birds in his old age, he was moving away from his belief in full flapping flight. As he was a careful observer of the gliding and soaring flight of birds, it is surprising that he never considered a proper controlled glider in the modern sense, although the last drawing he made suggests he might have done so later. The glider proper was a type of machine he might well have pioneered, had his peculiar psychological constitution not driven him first to his obsessional concern with human ornithopter flight. As already said, a factor beyond the passion for truth and enquiry was at work, a factor which indeed hindered and twisted his investigations; for, inextricably interwoven with his desire to impartially investigate the problems of flight, was his powerful symbolic interest in the romantic idea of flight. Sprache: Englisch Gewicht in Gramm: 550.
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