Glider

Da Vinci's glider is the invention I have decided to recreate within 3ds max. Through real life experiments and mistakes Da Vinci learned the difficulty of realizing his great dream of flying in a machine powered by human propulsion, and turned his talents toward the problem of gliding flight. In the glider drawing to the left has the flyer's position studied at the point where he is balanced through movements of the lower part of the body. The wings, modelled upon those of bats and birds of large wingspans, are fixed on the inboard portion (next to the flyer), and mobile at the external portion. This part of the wing in fact can be moved by the flyer by a control cable connected to handles. Leonardo arrived at this solution by studying the wing structure of birds and observing that the inboard part of their wings move more slowly than the outboard, and that therefore serve to thus sustain themselves and produce forward thrust. In his notes Leonardo describes the position of the flier’s arms and legs, which – with the help of ropes – can move the wing so that it cleaves the air edgeways when moved forward, and surface-ways when moved back. This is the glider that uses these ideas and which I am going to incorporate into my model. 
 There were various materials available during the 15th Century. Fabrics such as Silk and a fabric called Fustian would of been the fabric used for the wings. During the 15th Century there were many woods available to Da vinci such as maple wood, walnut wood, ebonized wood and fruit wood. I will be incorporating the look and texture of futian for the wings and maple wood for the structure as maple wood was available to Europe during the 15th Century.