The South West Film and Television Archive (SWFTA) is the regional film archive for the South West of England. Established in 1993, SWFTA's core collection comprises of the combined programme libraries of Westward Television and TSW (Television South West). The archive also cares for a significant number of donated film collections, both amateur and professional, dating back to the early 1900s.
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Da Vinci's Wingman
An eccentric Englishman looks to achieve winged flight inspired by Leonardo
From the collection of:
Overview
The Wingman is Mick Walton and he is convinced that the design based on Da Vinci's flying machine is an invention worth spending time, effort but perhaps not too much money on! Mick has built an ornithopter and he is trying it out on a hillside in Creechbarrow near Taunton. Designers of ornithopter machines seek to imitate the flapping wings of birds in flight. This film is from a burgeoning regional television station with the impromptu arrival of a train during the interview.
Leonardo Da Vinci lived in Italy from 1452 to 1519 and was a universal genius or polymath. He was a painter, engineer, anatomist, inventor, mathematician, botanist, architect; in short he had a brilliant mind. His most famous invention is perhaps the flying machine whose drawings have inspired our inventor. The first ornithopters capable of flight were constructed in France and unmanned machines have been used for among other things, military purposes but have also given rise to the use of the drone in aerial filming and wildlife conservation. Of eccentricity, invention and creative skills, when robots take over the world, jobs for people in creative industries will be safe.