I liked his "Plane Crazy: Building a Plane in 30 Days" on PBS.
Watching him try (and fail) to build a composite airplane says so much about the allure of modern techniques (I won't spoil the end, but old-school gets the last laugh). I've been less than enthusiastic about modern composites ever since seeing this show.
Bob's attempt (and short temper) reveals a good deal of hubris on his part.
The documentary is a fascinating failure and a masterclass in attempting to salvage a show when the whole premise for the show completely collapses.
Thanks for mentioning that, I hadn't seen any of his non-tech stuff before and it's a great watch. Even knowing absolutely nothing about building airplanes, it had me yelling "what the hell are you doing" as the events unfold. Everyone he talks to keeps saying that it can't be done and he goes for it anyway only to realize that they were all right. Even though the actual project is an abject failure it's still very entertaining.
I found a better rip of the documentary midway through this archive.org upload of off-air PBS recordings from North Carolina: https://archive.org/details/unc-tv-1997-vhs-720p-60 . It took like an hour to download and the tape hiss was pretty bad, so I ran it through Final Cut Pro's audio denoising filter and reuploaded it to Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqxU4nnLkeA
This is an amazing show.
If you're familiar with it, maybe you could answer one question: Cringely sourced a lot of the materials and know-how for the plane from American companies and workers. Would that be possible today?
Wow, I have a hazy memory of seeing this when I was a kid. Shocked I would ever see this again on HN of all places.
> Shocked I would ever see this again on HN of all places
Wouldn't HN be one of the most likely places?
Watching now… wow what a throw back. Got a kick out of the 90s PBS vibe and the Chicago news! Thanks for posting
thanks for posting <3 this is great
Yup, saw this vid decades ago. It still seems like yesterday.
"Watching him try (and fail) to build a composite airplane "
But the plane did fly.
> I love how after the debacle of Bob trying to make his own plane, the producers had to salvage the entire production by buying him a kit plane and filming him hang out a few hours at the factory acting like he was actually building the thing when really he was just getting in the way of the workers while grandstanding
The top comment lays it out as it is, lmao. And it was far more than 30 days as well.