Airplanes

An attempt by Southern California aviation buffs to retrieve a B-29 lying in the arctic wastes of Greenland since 1947 has ended in failure after the plane was destroyed by a flash fire just before takeoff. The effort to restore and return the Kee-Bird, which crashed after running out of gas during a Cold War spy mission, had captured the imagination of the nation's aviation community.

In Catharine Hamm's column "Causing a Stink on the Airplane" [On the Spot, April 8] regarding the appropriate place on an airplane to change a baby's diaper, the issue of hygiene was not addressed. I am appalled that the cabin crew would permit a baby to be changed on a passenger seat. I, for one, would dread being the person on the next flight to sit there. After all, not only can you not avoid touching surfaces that most certainly have been contaminated, this is the place where you will be served refreshments or, on a long flight in business or first class, a full meal.

Federal Aviation Administration rules restricting flights near the Golden Gate Bridge have grounded some who scatter the ashes of people's loved ones. Kathy and Darrin Silver, a mother and son who run Ash Scattering by Air in Hayward, haven't flown since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The business' Cessnas are parked at the Hayward airport, which means they can't take off at all. The Golden Gate Bridge is one of the Bay Area's most popular aerial scattering sites.

Question: I recently flew first class from Orlando, Fla., to Los Angeles. There was a couple with a little girl, maybe 2 years old, and the kid screeched the whole time. The parents never showed her a picture book, gave her toys or did anything to distract her. I could have ignored the screeching, but when they changed her diaper, the whole first class filled with an unpleasant stench. As a mom and grandma, I felt this was disgusting. Maybe there should be a rule that kids needs to be changed in the toilet area.

It's unfortunate that Martin Bernheimer was sent to cover composer Philip Glass, playwright David Henry Hwang and designer Jerome Sirlin's "1000 Airplanes on the Roof" ("UCLA Introduces Glass' Science-Fictitious 'Airplanes,' " Nov. 2). He shouldn't cover an experience that melds multimedia, science-fiction, music and drama, etc. In his review there's little mention of Hwang, the Los Angeles-New York Chinese-American playwright who received the 1988 Tony Award for best play for "M. Butterfly."

Piper Aerostars, like the one that crashed near John Wayne Airport on Friday, have had a history of engine-failure accidents during takeoffs and can be an unforgiving aircraft in the hands of an inexperienced pilot, according to an aviation magazine specializing in private aircraft. The Aviation Consumer said the Piper Aerostar has the highest accident rate among similar twin-engine small aircraft: with a fatal accident rate of 3.8 accidents per 100,000 hours of flight.

The government will ban cigarette lighters on airplanes beginning in April, but passengers can still tote as many as four matchbooks in carry-on bags, security officials said. The Transportation Security Administration said passengers cannot carry butane, battery-powered or other lighters on themselves or in carry-on bags after April 14.

It had been such a grand romance, America and the airplane. Contrails and the wild blue yonder. Lindbergh, the Wrights, Amelia Earhart. The Jenny. The Connie. Window seats. The Blue Angels. The jet set. The sound barrier. O beautiful, and friendly skies, where "It's a bird, it's a plane.... We were leaving on a jet plane, needed a ticket for an airplane, were 8 miles high, and flying, man, to touch the face of God.

A man who hit a Frontier Airlines flight attendant and swore at her before being subdued by other passengers and restrained by duct tape was charged in Denver with interfering with a flight crew. Jason Glen Tervort, 26, also spit at other passengers while on a flight from Houston to Denver, according to a complaint filed by the FBI.

The Mile Square Park Radio Control Air Show here Sunday was in many ways like the annual gig at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station--except it was vastly scaled down. Where a B-2 stealth bomber buzzed El Toro, Mile Square offered a model Northrop Flying Wing, which looks like a silver boomerang with wooden propellers. The Blue Angels awed El Toro fans. A model with a real jet engine did the same at the park. But there was a key difference.

Cheers to the Pima Air & Space Museum for flying what might be the largest paper airplane ever constructed over the Arizona desert earlier this week. The plane, dubbed Arturo's Desert Eagle, was 45 feet long with a 24-foot wingspan and weighed in at a whopping 800 pounds. It was built as part of the museum's Giant Paper Airplane Project , designed to get kids psyched about aviation and engineering. After a few false starts, the plane was towed into the sky above the Sonoran desert on Wednesday afternoon by a Sikorsky S58T helicopter.

Looking to take the next step in integrating drones into U.S. airspace, the Federal Aviation Administration has asked for public comments on the agency's selection process for picking unmanned aircraft system test sites. The FAA said Wednesday that the sites will play a key role in providing data so the agency can allow drones to fly in national airspace along with manned airplanes. The agency will accept comments for the next 60 days. Currently, drones are not allowed to fly in the U.S. except with special permission from the FAA. The agency has said that remotely piloted aircraft aren't allowed in national airspace on a wide scale because they don't have an adequate "detect, sense and avoid" technology to prevent midair collisions.

Question : In January, my husband and I flew to Rio de Janeiro from LAX, as we have done many times. But this time, something unusual happened. We had never had jet lag like this before, and we had it at both ends of the trip. If it had been just one of us, I might have thought one of us was coming down with something. The fact that it happened to both of us, both ways, same symptoms, makes me wonder whether they might be pressurizing the plane differently. Is it possible that caused our jet lag?

Reporting from Sacramento -- The San Bernardino County district attorney's office has filed criminal charges against a California lawmaker who attempted to take a loaded gun onto an airplane. Tim Donnelly, a self-described tea party Republican from San Bernardino, was charged with carrying a loaded firearm in public without a concealed weapons permit and possessing a gun in an airport. Both offenses are misdemeanors, punishable by up to 18 months in jail and $2,000 in fines. A vocal advocate for gun rights, Donnelly was detained by police at Ontario International Airport last month after security screeners discovered a loaded .45-caliber Colt Mark IV pistol and an ammunition magazine with an additional five rounds in his carry-on luggage.

Chicago-based Boeing Co. finalized what it calls a historic order for 230 aircraft worth $22.4 billion. Lion Air of Indonesia ordered 201 of the Boeing 737 Max planes and 29 next-generation 737-900ERs. The deal also includes purchase rights for an additional 150 airplanes. The order is the largest commercial airplane deal ever for Boeing, measured by both dollar value and total number of airplanes. Lion Air will be the first airline in Asia to fly the 737 Max and the first in the world to take delivery of the 737 Max-900.

Colton Harris-Moore's nearly four-year odyssey as the "Barefoot Bandit" came to a conclusion Friday when a federal judge sentenced him to 61/2 years in prison for the theft of airplanes, boats and guns in an audacious swath of crime that stretched from Washington state to the Bahamas. "I should have died years ago," Harris-Moore, 20, said in his first public statement since his arrest in 2010 shortly after he crash-landed one of his stolen planes on an island in the Caribbean. "I'd like to first say that what I did could be called daring, but it is no stretch of the imagination to say that I'm lucky to be alive," Harris-Moore, speaking in diffident tones and dressed in jail-issue khakis, told U.S. District Judge Richard A. Jones.

Despite a canceled test run and opposition from state firefighters, Assemblyman Terry Friedman (D-Encino) said Monday he will push ahead with plans to acquire a water-scooping airplane to protect Southern Californians from urban wildfires. Sunday's test in Malibu was supposed to highlight the CL-415's ability to scoop up 1,600 gallons of water from the ocean in 12 seconds, but low-lying clouds forced officials to scrub the mission.

The sensei (master) of paper airplanes can't recall anything unexpected happening while flying one. "Always, something expected happens," Yasuaki Ninomiya explained. But the question prompts a reminiscence from Ninomiya, a retired Japanese engineer whose books on paper-airplane design are best sellers in Japan. It's the story of the roots of his fame.

The notorious "Barefoot Bandit" was sentenced to 7½ years in prison Friday for an improbable odyssey of burglaries, thefts and stolen-aircraft joy rides across eight states that turned him into a cult hero around the world — and in the remote wooded islands where he grew up, an object of fear. Judge Vickie Churchill declined to impose the full 10 years sought by prosecutors for Colton Harris-Moore, 20, citing the young defendant's offer to make restitution to his victims, his expressions of remorse and a dramatic history laid out in court of a childhood full of abuse, neglect, poverty and alcoholic parents that led him to begin stealing food and shoes from neighbors at age 13. "It's a tragedy that he had to steal food because he had nothing to eat as a young boy. That he had to bear the taunts and jeers of classmates who ridiculed him because he lived in a derelict mobile home.

The news arrived like most these days, in our fast-moving, wired-to-know-immediately culture. Mike Scioscia's cellphone rang. "I was on the plane Wednesday night, coming home from the baseball meetings in Dallas," Scioscia said. "We were about to take off, my phone rang, and it was Arte. " The owner of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Arte Moreno, was calling his manager. "He asked if I was sitting down," Scioscia said. "I told him I even had my seat belt fastened.