Pilots

The Air Force is in the midst of swapping out the fleet of high-speed sport cars that chase down its sinister-looking black spy planes at breakneck speeds. For more than 50 years, the chase cars have been critical to the high-flying U-2's mission. The jets have such long wingspans -- 105 feet -- that it's difficult for pilots to take off or land without people on the ground telling them about wing angles and clearance. So a pilot in the chase car radios to the pilot in the cockpit and lets him or her know how things look.

SAN FRANCISCO - Lawmakers on Tuesday approved what appear to be the nation's tiniest apartments - 220 square feet, including the bathroom, kitchen and closet - in a pilot program aimed at creating more options in this prohibitively expensive housing market. The city already allows for construction of 290-square-foot micro-units. But Supervisor Scott Wiener backed the reduced minimum size in hopes that the apartments would rent for $1,200 to $1,500 a month, a steal compared with San Francisco's current average studio rents of $2,000.

Today's professionals didn't fantasize about becoming presidents and princesses when they were younger -- instead, their childhood dream jobs involved occupations such as engineering, writing and science. American boys wanted most to be professional or Olympic athletes, according to a survey from LinkedIn, a social network for workers. Girls aspired to become teachers, according to the poll of more than 8,000 professionals worldwide ( hat tip to the Huffington Post). In the U.S., men also said they had hoped to grow up as airplane or helicopter pilots, scientists, lawyers or astronauts.

David G. Riggs, a local aviator whose flight privileges were revoked after he buzzed the Santa Monica Pier in 2008, lost his pilot's license again this week for illegally selling rides to the public in a Soviet-era military jet. The enforcement action by the Federal Aviation Administration stems from an accident in Nevada on May 18 in which an Aero Vodochody L-39 Albatros crashed in the desert, killing a veteran pilot and a passenger who had purchased...

An Air Force pilot who was hospitalized after his jet crashed at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida is in good condition and has been released, military officials said Friday. At about 3:30 p.m. Thursday the pilot was returning from a routine training mission in an F-22 Raptor -- considered the most advanced fighter jet in the world -- when he alerted people on the ground of an emergency and then ejected, base officials said. The $143-million jet, designed by Lockheed Martin Corp., slammed into a grassy field about a quarter-mile east of a drone runway.

Federal officials will investigate the crash of a single-engine plane carrying three pilots traveling to a safety conference when the craft slammed into a Jackson, Miss., house, killing the three. The pilots were heading to a Federal Aviation Administration conference about 30 miles from Jackson's Hawkins Field Airport. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate. According to the Jackson Municipal Airport Authority , the craft took off from the airport about 5:10 p.m. Tuesday, heading for Raymond, Miss., to the FAA conference.

A JetBlue pilot who rambled incoherently and had to be restrained by passengers during a flight in March was scheduled to be released from federal custody Friday and will not be allowed back on commercial flights. On March 27, Clayton Osbon, 49, suffered from a temporary “severe mental disease or defect” on a New York to Las Vegas flight where he shouted obscenities, talked about religion and screamed about 9/11, Iraq, Iran, and terrorists, according to his criminal complaint.

American Airlines had the worst on-time performance of any major airline in September, and its labor woes appear to be the reason. Only 58% of the Fort Worth-based airline's flights were on time in September, compared with 75% in August, according to numbers released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Transportation. In contrast, the nation's largest airlines reported an average on-time performance of 83% in September. That's an improvement over the 79% on-time performance in August.

Game On Dude didn't quite have enough game. Mucho Macho Man had insufficient macho. And so Saturday's Breeders' Cup Classic, a Hollywood show taking place before 55,123 well-dressed and well-entertained people at a horse track long established in star-studded Los Angeles as the Great Race Place, got its best moment via a wonderful little old lady from Kansas. Janis Whitham's Fort Larned won the Classic, the $3 million that comes with that, and the affection of thousands of new race fans.