Aircraft

LOS ANGELES — An unmanned hypersonic glider developed for U.S. defense research into super-fast global strike capability was launched atop a rocket early Thursday but contact was lost after the experimental craft began flying on its own, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said.

There was no immediate information on how much of the mission’s goals were achieved.

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- A stun gun that looked like a cellphone was found aboard an empty JetBlue plane that landed at Newark Liberty International Airport on Friday night, raising questions about how the concealed weapon made it past security checkpoints.

The FBI is investigating the apparent security lapse, authorities said Monday. The thin, rectangular device was found in a seat pocket by a worker cleaning the airplane after it arrived from Boston's Logan International Airport. Authorities said it was probably left behind by a passenger.

SAN DIEGO -- They fly low and slow over the border, their wings painted black and motors humming faintly under moonlit skies. The pilots, some armed in the open cockpits, steer the horizontal control bar with one hand and pull a latch with the other, releasing 250-pound payloads that land with a thud, leaving only craters as evidence of another successful smuggling run.

Mexican organized crime groups, increasingly stymied by stepped-up enforcement on land, have dug tunnels and captained boats to get drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border. Now they are taking to the skies, using ultralight aircraft that resemble motorized hang gliders to drop marijuana bundles in agricultural fields and desert scrub across the Southwest border.

SAN MATEO, Calif. -- A man with ties to the San Francisco Bay Area and Yemen was wrestled to the floor of a San Francisco International Airport-bound airliner Sunday night by crew members and passengers after trying to smash open the locked cockpit door with his shoulder, according to federal court documents.

Federal authorities filed a criminal charge of interference with a flight crew Monday against 28-year-old Rageh Almurisi, who was traveling with a Yemeni passport and a California ID that says he lives in Vallejo. An FBI spokeswoman said he is due in federal court Tuesday.

HILL AIR FORCE BASE -- Financially speaking, last year was a rough one for Hill Air Force Base, and 2011 might be even worse.

In a report to the Davis County Commission on Tuesday, Col. Patrick Higby, commander of the base's 75th Air Base Wing, said his wing's 2011 operating and maintenance budget has been slashed for the fourth consecutive year and is down more than 50 percent from what it was in 2008.

The air base wing provides operating support for essentially the entire base, including the Ogden Air Logistics Center, the 388th and 419th Fighter Wings, 84th Combat Sustainment Wing, 309th Maintenance Wing, 526th ICBM Systems Wing, 508th Aircraft Sustainment Wing and 25 associate units.

LOS ANGELES -- The U.S. Air Force plans to launch an experimental aircraft Thursday that could potentially reach speeds of 4,000 mph over the Pacific Ocean in a test flight that could give the Pentagon a new way to deliver a military strike anywhere around the globe within minutes.

Built in Southern California, the unmanned X-51 WaveRider is being developed to deliver powerful warheads at tremendously high speeds with pinpoint accuracy almost anywhere on Earth.

Military officials say the need for the technology became clear in 1998 when the U.S. military tried -- and failed -- to kill Osama bin Laden. While positioned in the Arabian Sea, Navy vessels lobbed cruise missiles at training camps in Afghanistan, hitting their targets -- 80 minutes later. By then, bin Laden was gone.