One of Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks exploring the possibilities and potentials for human flight will come to the Smithsonian Institution this fall, on view at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.  Codex on the Flight of Birds, which will begin showing in mid-September, explores the various concerns of flight, including weight, space, and an early exploration of the force of gravity, years before Newton formally named it as such.  “Centuries before any real progress toward a practical flying machine was achieved, Leonardo expressed the seeds of the ideas that would lead to humans spreading their wings,” says National Air and Space chief curator Peter Jakab. (more…)