The Aerodynamics of Leonardo Da Vinci

Many books on aerodynamics are prefaced by a short historical introduction, in which, after having quoted Aristotle for his ideas on the motion of bodies through the air, and Newton, from whom aerodynamics is admitted to start, the name of Leonardo da Vinci is recorded, pointing out that he was the first to attribute to the resistance of the air the cause of the lift and flight of birds, recognising in the same resistance the possibility of solving the problem of flight.