Leonardo Da
Vinci

The Helicopter
The first helicopter wasn’t built until the 1940’s, It is believed that Leonardo Da Vinci’s sketches that were found in the fifteenth century were the predecessor to the modern day machine. Along with many other of Leonardos ideas, he never built it and tested it.
However, his notes and drawings mapped out how the machine would operate. This hasn’t changed much today. Next to his sketches of the screw-like machine, he wrote “If this instrument made with a screw be well made-that is to say, made of linen of which the pores are stopped up with starch and be turned swiftly, the said screw will make its spiral in the air and it will rise high”. This show that he had a rough idea what the invention would look like and fly like to this day.
Leonardo called it the Helical Air
Screw and it was designed to compress air to maintain and obtain flight (very similar to todays helicopters). Leonardo strongly believed that the screw-like shape had many possibilities and he used it in many of his other inventions and
(Leonardo Da vincis “helicopter”, 15th Century [from designs. Da Vinci’s helicopter
Gessow and Myers, 1952) measured more than 15 feet in diametre and was made from reed, linen and wire. It was powered by four men standing on a central platform turning cranks to rotate the shaft. With enough force in the rotation Leonardo believed the invention would lift of the ground. However, modern scientists and historians do not believe his invention would be able to take flight due to not enough rotation generated by just four men and weight constrictions. Leonardos invention was the first SERIOUS attempt to produce a working helicopter. It was clearly ahead of his time however it
(Leonardos original drawing was kept in was virtually impossible to create a working good condition for how old it is) helicopter without the adequate technology.
A scale built by the science museum in
London was exactly like Leonardo’s invention and it did not successfully fly

The helicopter
The modern day helicopter has been built up through trial and error.
The helicopter we know today is a type of rotor craft in which lift which pushes something up and thrust are supplied by rotors as opposed to
Leonardos strong men. Wings have a curved shape on top and are flatter on the bottom. That shape makes air flow over the top faster than the bottom. The faster air on top of the wing makes suction and the wing moves up. This is how airplanes fly. A helicopters rotor blades a the equivalent of wings except they are much more maneuverable. This allows the helicopter to take off, land vertically, hover, fly forward, backward. These attributes allow helicopters to be used in isolated or heavily populated areas where less maneuverable craft such as a plane cannot preform. The word helicopter is adapted from the French word helicoptere which then originates from the greek word helix(twisted and curved wing). Helicopters can do what airplanes cannot. There most useful skill is the ability to not need a runway and they can hover in one spot for long periods of time.
Helicopter can be used for many things such as ambulances for carrying patients. They can fight fires with buckets of water when they hover. helicopter have advanced a lot since the Chinese invented a spinning top. Leonardos idea came from a maple seed. These seeds spin as they are dropping. Leonardos view was that it might be possible to rise if it was spun. It was designed to have two men on a circular platform and they would rotate the blades and therefore produce flight. Engines hadn’t been invented yet a men had no no where near enough power to provide enough thrust. However helicopter today use the same concept except they have engines and modern technology. Inventors took the chineses spinning screw and Leonardos theory to create the helicopter we know today. helicopter today had to wait for a