Rob: Everyone has their favorite engineering movies, but I agree with you about Apollo 13. That movie is one of the rare few that actually IS about engineering. And it shows the engineers as the heroes.
Didn't know that detail about The Right Stuff, Chuck. Another good engineering movie is Apollo 13. About a third of the way into the movie, the whole story becomes an engineering problem and solution.
As was the pilot of the Phoenix in the original "Flight of the Phoenix", I believe.
By the way, did anyone else notice inthe excellent remake, how both undercarriage legs were torn off in the crash, and yey but a few minutes later.....
Some good ones brought up. worthy mention- though over-simplisitc goes to "The Arrow"; "The Dambusters" had some good background onn the early parts of the story. Goodyear released a great fifty minute film on airships, nowadays re titled "The Zeppelin" with a new and much poorer commentary. "Ocotber Sky" and "The world's fastest Indian" are probably the ones to beat, but relating to the latter's subject, "Bluebirds" should get an honourable mention. I hope to see a film from "Raising the Kursk", since that's the best book I've seen covering an engineering project of manageable proportions.
Sorry about being late to the party. My favorite Engineering Movie would be "From the Earth to the Moon" which was an HBO mini-series about the Apollo program. Several of the episodes demonstrate the trade-offs involved in engineering especially the ones on the Lunar Lander and the choice of the near earth rendezvous approach. It has some more "dramatic" episodes but, as a whole I found it very entertaining and educational.
Alex -- a little-known point about the shooting of The Right Stuff: In the scene where Yeager bails out at the end of the movie, the parachute stunt man was reportedly killed.
I agree, The Right Stuff was virtually poetic in it's cinematography. But for engineering appeal, I like it more down to earth and personal, the little guy doing more with less. "World's Fastest Indian" was great in that respect and a great story to boot.
I usually don't classify movies about flying or aerospace in the engineering bucket, cause they're a genre unto themselves. (Plus, once you hit space, you start to get heavily into sci-fi.) That said, if we're talking aerospace, far and away my favority is "The Right Stuff." That's not because of the story -- the whole Chuck Yaeger breaking the sound barrier is well known -- or the acting (good though it is, particularly Ed Harris and Sam Shepard. Rather, it's the cinematography. The way it's shot is beautiful. All that blue sky; it has a very wide open feel and you get that whole flying/space vibe the whole movie because of that. Cinematographer was Caleb Deschanel.
jmiller: Armageddon is another of my guilty pleasures. I think it's hilarious that the NASA scientists could land a spaceship on a speeding asteroid but couldn't figure out how to put a drill together.
Apollo 13 is a good one I agree but I have to throw in Armageddon. I know it's a little far fetched and not really plausible but who really wants to put the fate of the world in a man who got a C- in Astrophysics.
As energy efficiency becomes more and more a concern for makers of electronics devices, researchers are coming up with new ways to harvest energy from sound vibration, footsteps, and even electromagnetic fields in the air.
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