Aviation

Their losses deepening, European airlines on Sunday stepped up pressure to reopen the skies by carrying out passenger-free test flights despite the layer of volcanic ash that kept most planes across the continent grounded for a fourth day. Airlines in Germany, the Netherlands and France sent jets close to or into the plume of ash and dust thrown up by the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland, in bids to demonstrate that flying conditions over Europe...

Jessie Woods never learned to drive a car, but she stood on her head on airplane wings and began flying when aviation had a soul. In those days, airplane fuel was 15 cents a gallon and Charles Lindbergh had just knocked the cap off the new frontier. "I was born at the best of times the world has ever known, or will know," Woods said. "At the time I broke into aviation, aviation was coming up to bloom. Now it's outgrown itself. It has grown beyond me. I can't really comprehend it.

The pilot of a helicopter that crashed in Acton this month had his pilot privileges suspended twice in the last decade, Federal Aviation Administration records show. David Gibbs, 59, of Valencia was among three people killed in an early morning crash at the Polsa Rosa Ranch on Feb. 10 during the production of a military-themed reality TV show for the Discovery Channel. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash, which was the worst film set accident in California since 1982, when star Vic Morrow and two child actors were killed by a helicopter that slammed into them during the filming of "Twilight Zone: The Movie.

It's being called the largest wind power project in the country, with plans for thousands of acres of towering turbines in the Mojave Desert foothills generating electricity for 600,000 homes in Southern California. And now it's finally kicking into gear. The multibillion-dollar Alta Wind Energy Center has had a tortured history, stretching across nearly a decade of ownership changes, opposition from local residents and transmission infrastructure delays. But on Tuesday, the project is officially breaking ground in the Tehachapi Pass, a burgeoning hot spot for wind energy about 75 miles north of Los Angeles.

Not since the waning days of World War II have the mammoth wooden blimp hangars at the former military base in Tustin seen as much airship manufacturing work as they do today. Inside the 17-story structures that rise above southern Orange County, Worldwide Aeros Corp. is building a blimp-like airship designed for the military to carry tons of cargo to remote areas around the world. "Nobody has ever tried to do what we're doing here," Chief Executive Igor Pasternak said of the 265-foot skeleton being transformed into the cargo airship.

The Navy's new drone being tested near Chesapeake Bay stretches the boundaries of technology: It's designed to land on the deck of an aircraft carrier, one of aviation's most difficult maneuvers. What's even more remarkable is that it will do that not only without a pilot in the cockpit, but without a pilot at all. The X-47B marks a paradigm shift in warfare, one that is likely to have far-reaching consequences. With the drone's ability to be flown autonomously by onboard computers, it could usher in an era when death and destruction can be dealt by machines operating semi-independently.

Two and a half years after Delores Jackson drowned in his swimming pool, businessman Donald Bohana pleaded not guilty Wednesday to her murder and was ordered held in lieu of $1-million bail. A short bail hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court depicted Bohana as a 60-year-old businessman with widespread contacts, a pilot's license--and more than $4 million in debts.

The X-47B, the Navy's new experimental drone, caused a stir in the Washington area when residents mistook the sleek, bat-winged robotic jet for a UFO. The drone was strapped to the back of a big rig en route this week to Naval Air Station Patuxent River in southern Maryland from Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert. Along the way motorists snapped photos and took to Twitter to describe their astonishment. Others, according to a Fox station affiliate in Washington, were so perplexed they called police.

As the cost of attending four-year universities continues to rise precipitously (private universities now charge as much as $22,200 for annual tuition), more individuals are exploring non-university options to obtain educations that can ready them for entry into the work force. Southern California's numerous community colleges offer relatively inexpensive ($13 per unit), two-year vocational certificate programs that prepare students for specific jobs.

With a sonic boom that resounded above the Mojave Desert, a rocket plane belonging to British billionaire Richard Branson's commercial space venture Virgin Galactic got one step closer to carrying tourists into space. On Monday the company's SpaceShipTwo ignited its rocket motor in mid-flight for the first time and sped to Mach 1.2, faster than sound, reaching about 56,000 feet in altitude. The test flight is the biggest milestone in Virgin Galactic's 81/2-year endeavor to be the world's first commercial space liner, which would make several trips a day carrying scores of paying customers into space for a brief journey.