Building An Ornithopter, Canada

The idea constructing wings in order to resemble the flight birds dates to the ancient Greek legend Daedalus (Greek demigod engineer) and Icarus (Daedalus's son). The Chinese Book Han records that Xin Dynasty Emperor Wang Mang oversaw the earliest ornithopter flight test in 19 CE.
Among the first recorded attempts with gliders were those by the 11th century monk Eilmer Malmesbury (recorded in the 12th century) and the 9th century poet Abbas Ibn Firnas (recorded in the 17th century); the reported flights were probably just glides and resulted in injury. Roger Bacon, writing in 1260, was also among the first to consider a technological means flight. In 1485, Leonardo da Vinci began to study the flight birds. He grasped that humans are too heavy, and not strong enough, to fly using wings simply attached to the arms. Therefore he proposed a device in which the aviator lies down on a plank and works two large, membranous wings using hand levers, foot pedals, and a system pulleys.
The first ornithopters capable flight were constructed in France in the 1870s. Gustave Trouvé's 1870 model flew a distance 70 metres in a demonstration for the French Academy Sciences. The wings were flapped by gunpowder charges activating a bourdon tube. Jobert in 1871 used a rubber band to power a small model bird. Alphonse Penaud, Hureau de Villeneuve, Victor Tatin, and others soon followed with their own designs.