Many PBS shows get their own Web sites, but "Plane Crazy" -- my aviation series -- isn't one of those. This column will be its only online monument. But since the normal subject matter here is high technology, not aviation, I feel it would be a good idea to look at the airplane show for lessons that can be applied to many different types of endeavors, including high-tech startups and the building of tactical nuclear weapons.

Last week I made cryptic reference to the show, but now it's been on, and those who saw it know exactly why I am a bit embarrassed by the whole thing. There is a whole lot of me on that screen, and not all of it is admirable. I made almost every possible mistake in the venture short of being shot down. That comes later.

Here, with reference back to the show, are some of the lessons I learned.

1. I obviously didn't think the project through before I started. The task itself -- to design, build and fly an airplane in 30 days -- was pretty near impossible, but I guaranteed that it was impossible by doing no pre-planning whatsoever. I took the task too lightly because I had built planes before, and just expected to make it work. I have a legendary ability to go without sleep, but even I can't go for 30 days. This fits with what I've seen in many startups where -- like me -- the founder was used to succeeding and thought he knew what he was doing. I was an idiot and probably still am.

2. Once underway, I didn't listen to any advice. In the first hour, it is amazing how almost everyone tells me what I am facing is an impossible task, yet I ignore them. I simply would not allow for the possibility of failure. Sometimes this is good when there is enough energy to just push through and get the job done, but in this case, it was lunacy. The project was just too big. The advice I did listen to -- from Martin, the aeronautical engineer -- wasn't any better than what I came up with on my own. Note that the only person who was nonchalant about the whole thing was the most famous engineer of the bunch, Burt Rutan. Burt not only wasn't impressed by my effort, he said he could do it in a week! But having decided it was possible, Burt wisely found no need to follow through. Sure.

3. Like Napoleon and Hitler, I learned the folly of fighting a war on more than one front. I was trying to design an airplane, build it using untested techniques, and power it with an untested engine. To perform one of these feats would have been enough. Startups that try to do so many things -- push the technology in several ways, maybe find a new method of marketing, and create a product classification nobody has ever heard of -- nearly always fail. Do one thing at a time. When I finally succeeded, it was with a design that was finished before I started building, and with an engine that had worked in an earlier airplane.

4. One of my biggest mistakes of all wasn't particularly obvious: My goal was completely different from the goals of the other people around me. Most of the other people had the goal of making a television show, which I saw as a petty distraction. Most of the intrigue that took place toward the end of the second hour when I self-destructed had more to do with the director wanting to make good television than with any real worry he had about the plane. I thought they were rightly complaining about my failure to finish the plane on time, but they were just trying to make me mad to create some drama. It sure worked. In retrospect it was probably a good thing for the show, then, that I was so dense.

5. But not everything went wrong. I did learn a few of the positive lessons that one can also learn in a good startup. The most basic lesson of all is to be willing to give up the original product concept in favor of something that works. This happens in nearly every startup. I thought I was giving up the dream when I accepted Martin's design rather than mine, but the truth was I didn't give in really until we moved the show to Ohio in the third hour. I also learned, pretty much for the first time in my life, to accept help. Thank you, Katy. Believe me, I found my limits on this project. And I also found my values, because Ralph's heart attack and my reaction to it showed me a side of that relationship I never considered. Ralph is in many ways the father I wish I had had. Luckily, he's still with me and healthier than ever at 86.

I learned some real humility from this project and that was a good thing. Otherwise the whole project would have been even more narcissistic than it looks. I would still have looked stupid, but the show also wouldn't have had the power it has in its present form. When it played last year in England it was over three successive weeks, and the ratings just kept growing from week to week. In the third hour, the ratings grew minute to minute as people realized that a flight was likely to happen and called their friends to watch this crazy American. The British national character requires Americans for wacky shows like this. "Plane Crazy" got better ratings in the UK than did "Triumph of the Nerds." Weird, eh?

Of course, there is no way of telling whether an American audience will react the same way.

PBS, having risked the money to make this thing, probably got more than they ever bargained for. To a certain extent, I am viewed these days as part of the future of PBS, yet here they have me going berserk and attacking camera crews in my garage. Bill Moyers never did that. Well it's the '90s, kids. It's an imperfect world, and I fit right in. Next: The Full Cringely!

Looking back at the show, one thing I came away with that wasn't as I expected was the airplane itself. My previous building efforts have always been fast planes, but this little tadpole isn't good for much more than flitting about. This is such low technology it can almost be called no technology. Yet a year later, I couldn't be more thrilled with it. In the hustle of Silicon Valley, having a cute little biplane in which to flit about has become great therapy. Larry Ellison should be so lucky. But Larry would never understand.

The TV listings for "Plane Crazy" in the San Francisco Examiner referred to me as all the usual things (high tech gossip columnist, etc.), then went on to call me a "sometime actor." It should be clear to anyone who watches this show from end to end that there is no acting here. This is real life. And if it is compelling, that is probably the reason. We may be onto something here!