The Flight of Bryan review – magnificent nerds and their remarkable flying machines

This jaunty documentary concerns the attempt by a team of California-based engineers, tinkerers and enthusiastic amateurs to win the 1977 Kremer prize, a $100k reward for constructing and flying a man-powered airborne craft around a predetermined course. In order to tell the story, director James Erskine enlists the real Bryan Allen, the aircraft’s pilot, who engagingly tells his story in interviews and also teaches actor Jordan Renzo how to play him in the film’s reconstructions. Allen’s foil was/is Paul MacCready, the engineer who designed what became known as the Gossamer Condor, whom we see in archive footage as well as the drama (played by Steven O’Neill).

That might sound complicated, but it’s not really; it’s just another metatextual tale of nerds pulling together with glue guns and salvaged parts to try to achieve remarkable things, albeit distracted at times by arguments over profit sharing. This last is the evergreen story of aeronautics and engineering in the Golden state, from the mid-20th century to the dawn of Tesla. Allen and several other interviewees describe themselves as having Asperger’s or being neurodiverse in one way or another, reflecting that it’s one reason they had such singular superpowers of concentration; that kind of positivity about mental difference is another reason to enjoy the ride.

But it is the footage of the team trying to win the Kremer prize, and later a second one, that’s the big thrill here. Erskine and his editors suture and staple it all together seamlessly, braiding the reconstructions with archive material, even if the end result is perhaps a little too reliant on a snazzy, jazzy soundtrack, full of parping horns and funky basslines that ends up feeling a bit repetitive over the long haul.

• The Flight of Bryan is in UK cinemas from 22 November.