Besides being a famous artist, Leonardo DeVinci known to be one of the greatest inventors and scientists in history. Painting, sculpture and architecture were among the favorite arts of the Tuscan genius, but in the late 1400s Leonardo left to posterity many project drawingsone of which belongs to the first prototype of unmanned aircraft. The artist has always been fascinated by flight, but at the time technology did not yet allow the success of a safe aircraft.
After 500 years, the drone designed by Leonardo really flies
At a further distance five centuriesa team of engineers fromUniversity of Maryland used da Vinci’s sketches to create a working drone, called crimson tower, for a flight design competition. The drone one quadcopter inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s “aerial screw”.a project developed during his first stay in Milan.The particularity of this machine lies in the technical-scientific hypothesis formulated by Leonardo: the enormous sail with propeller, in rotation, should have been screwed in the air, lifting the vessel inspired by the principle of the vine.
Returning to the modern project, the drone has four plastic corkscrew wingsbut instead of turning them (or pumping them) by hand as da Vinci proposed, these are alison powered by batteries and electric motors.Austin Prete, who is part of the project’s engineering team and built the Crimson Spin for his master’s degree, has flew the device for several short trips and presented the first video of the aircraft in flight toTransformer Vertical Flight Conference.