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A model or prototype of Leonardo Da Vinci's Aerial Screw is seen in the Holo-Workshop in [
68 Scorpion, Part One]. In the screenshot below, it is located behind Holo-Leonardo. According to the canon authority TOSTFF (The Official Star Trek Fact Files), that particular scene is set in 1502.
[68 Scorpion, Part One]
Da Vinci's sketch
The above design drawing and notes for the Aerial Screw appears in folio 83v, this being one of the folios in Manuscript B in the Codex Atlanticus, alongisde those for other flying machines, and dates from 1489. That date accords with TOSTFF's statement that the scene in [68 and 69 Scorpion] is set in 1502 as it is plausible that Holo-Leonardo should have a mock-up of it in his workshop. The drawing, like the others in the Codex, was made with pen and ink, a technique which allowed for rapid accurate execution of the drawing. Possibly Holo-Leonardo's reference to his silver-tipped pen in [79 Concerning Flight] is to the pen he favoured for such drawings!
for wooden housing and capstan detail, see picture of The Da Vinci Store's authentic model kit below
The Aerial Screw is a device which, when rotated, was supposed to lift off in flight. With the aim of achieving human flight, Leonardo devoted most of his attention to the dynamic potential of the human body which he intended would be the driving force of the flying machine. He also considered another aspect, namely the air, being the element in which the flying machine would operate. He studied the air and, unlike water (which he studied also and for which he separately devised a ski-like device to "walk" on water and a device to enable someone to breathe while walking underwater), decided that air could be compressed if enough energy was exerted upon it. He carried out an experiment, described in Manuscript B (folio 88v), to verify this. If air could be compressed, then he deduced that it has material density. Based on that conclusion, Leonardo deduced that a device in the form of a screw, rotating very quickly, could lift itself up into flight, by boring into the fluid density of the air in the way that a screw does into other materials. Leonardo noted in Codex Atlanticus: "I have discovered that a screw-shaped device such as this, if it is well-made from starched linen, will rise in the air if turned quickly." Leonardo intended that the Aerial Screw's structure would be a helical-shaped iron stay attached to a central mast with a series of wooden ribs, allowing the "wing" to be covered in cloth and fixed to the main structure. He suggested that the linen, sized with starch to reduce its porosity, should be used to cover the helical structure. A system of wooden trestles would allow the "wing" structure to be attached to the central mast and consequently to the operating base where men would work the rotating mechanism. The circular operating platform, made of wood, would house the men used to produce the energy necessary for the screw to bore into the density of the air and thus to fly.
Success for the Aerial Screw would depend on achieving a high enough speed of rotation, which ultimately mealt that the problem was tied to another aspect he investigated, namely how to achieve adequate force. As often found in Leonardo's designs, aspects were not fully developed, and this was one of them.
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Ed Schulman's model kit's build diagram which explains the means of propulsion
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Expert consensus today is that the device as designed would not fly nor in fact would it have employed the dynamic principles utilised by the modern helicopter. The Maestro himself seems to have acknowledged that the device could not fly by stating that having people wind the capstan would either not be powerful enough or send them spinning off the platform and therefore that winding a spring mechanism would be more appropriate. Da Vinci suggested building a paper model to test the idea.
A model kit of the Aerial Screw can be purchased from Sources: The Da Vinci Store (see pictures left). |
A model of this item is also seen on the table in the workshop that the alien named Tau provides for Holo-Leonardo - see Screenshots of the Workshop provided
by Tau in [79 Concerning Flight] .
  The Dream Of Flight |
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