History of Ornithopters and Helicopters

One of the first flying machines designed or least imagined is ornithopter. In essence, when mankind looked at the sky, he saw that the birds were flying and thus humanity realized that if he wanted to own the sky, he would have to fly like a bird. Thus since the beginning of civilization, humanity, with its search for power over nature, has tried to repeat the design and behavior of natural flying species. In addition to the formal history of mankind, legend also describes the journey of mankind to fly.

History of Ornithopters and Helicopters

The first reference to Ornithopter and a real reference to fly are in the Daedalus and Icarus legends. When Icarus was held captive by the Gods on the mountain fortress, he used a large wing that was tethered to his body by a candle. But because he flew too close to the sun, according to legend his wings melted from his body and he fell into a deep, bottomless pit. Even though it is a tragic myth, it symbolizes the search for humans to fly and thus controls the forces of nature.

As humanity progresses further and further, throughout history there have been many experiments and designs for flying machines. To build flights, humanity sees the only available flying example: birds. Because of this, everyone tried to copy bird designs to design flying machines that were parallel to their development: Ornithopter. In essence, the ornithopter is a machine that has bird-like wings and a place for operators to attach. The operator will flap its arms and the ornithopter wings will also be flapped. In essence, humanity will fly by simulating the flutter of the bird's wings. However, because the principles of aerodynamics were not found, no one was aware of the ratio of wings to muscle strength and thus all these projects and efforts must have failed.

Perhaps the most serious thought came from the famous thinker and designer Leonardo Da Vinci. He drew many representations of birds to understand the principle correctly. Thus, as a result he was designed to design Ornithopters and Helicopter designs which are vehicles that can take off vertically from the ground using a horizontal knife to the ground. In fact, it can be said that ornithopter is the father of a helicopter.

During the history of mankind there were hundreds of ornithopter helicopter designs and even those who never had the chance to fly from the ground. Especially the 19th century was filled with many inventors who competed for the design of successful ornithopter. In fact, the great inventor Thomas Edison who tampered with ornithopter advertisements even received patents (although the design was not feasible and therefore never worked) When it was realized that the power to flap wings was not sufficient in Humans, new designs were introduced that utilized mechanical energy to fly. In 1870, French inventor Gustave Trouve designed an ornithopter that received its power to flap its wings from an internal combustion engine. The flight was successful in part because of the ornithopter he designed to fly 70 meters from the ground.

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The end result is that even though people try to fly ornithopters, it's not a decent aerodynamic design. Although in the 20th century some successful ornithopters were built, it was stopped as an idea. Then the power to fly was concentrated on flying flights (not flapping wings) and thus the Wright Brothers could fly to create a big industry in the 20th century. However, efforts for Ornithopter are not in vain, because in principle the helicopter laying stones.