Warplanes

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Israel blockaded Lebanon's coastline, bombarded its international airport and staged hundreds of air raids in a wide-ranging assault yesterday aimed at forcing the Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah to free two captured Israeli soldiers. A defiant Hezbollah retaliated by raining more than 100 Katyusha rockets on northern Israel, killing two people and injuring dozens of others. At least one rocket hit the large coastal city of Haifa, previously out of the projectiles' range, causing no injuries but raising alarm at the prospect of deadly strikes on major Israeli urban centers.

Two men were killed yesterday evening when a vintage, single-engine airplane crashed in a woods on Kent Island and burst into flames about four miles south of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, said state police at Centreville.Identities of the victims, both pilots from St. Mary's County, were not released last night.Police said witnesses reported seeing the World War II trainer, known as a "War Bird," take off about 7: 15 p.m. from the Kentmorr airstrip, stall and crash."It was an old plane and was making a lot of noise when it took off," said Alina Jens, 23, a waitress at the Kentmorr Restaurant, a few hundred yards from the privately owned airfield south of the bridge's eastern end.She said the plane took off westbound from the airstrip, and was climbing and turning south when suddenly no sound came from the engine.

WASHINGTON -- Seven years ago, in the face of mounting costs, the United States withdrew from an elaborate project to help build an advanced combat aircraft for Israel. The idea was scrubbed -- or so it seemed.Now, to the consternation of U.S. officials, much of the American know-how and initial planning for the canceled "Lavi" fighter plane are about to be put to use in China.U.S. government officials have recently concluded that China and Israel are collaborating to develop and produce an improved fighter for the Chinese air force.

Lockheed Martin Corp. said yesterday that its first-quarter earnings rose 15 percent because revenue poured in from contracts to develop new warplanes. The Bethesda-based defense contractor said its net income rose to $250 million, or 55 cents a share, from $218 million, or 49 cents, in last year's first quarter. Sales jumped 18 percent to $7.05 billion, Lockheed said. Lockheed's revenue was generated mainly from development of the F/A-22 and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jet programs. The company's warplanes are winning orders and helping Lockheed turn the corner after combined losses of $1.57 billion in 2000 and 2001.

Three aerospace giants are competing to build the Joint Strike Fighter, a next-generation warplane that not only could be used by the Air Force but could fly from aircraft carriers for the Navy and land and take off vertically for the Marines and the British Royal Navy. Lockheed Martin Corp. of Bethesda, McDonnell Douglas Corp. of St. Louis and Boeing Co. of Seattle have all fielded entries in the competition, and sometime in the middle of next month the government will tell two of them to build prototypes.

WASHINGTON -- In the first aerial hostilities in the region sinc the Persian Gulf war, the United States shot down an Iraqi fighter plane yesterday after two Iraqi aircraft crossed 20 miles into the "no-fly" zone over southern Iraq and confronted two U.S. warplanes, the Pentagon said.Baghdad Radio immediately labeled the incident "a criminal act of aggression" and broadcast a statement threatening to respond "in the appropriate manner and at the appropriate time."The incident, which occurred at about 10 a.m. in Iraq (3 a.m. EST)

The parent company of AAI Corp., whose unmanned aerial vehicles have emerged as one of the technological darlings of the war in Iraq, saw its shares climb nearly 10 percent yesterday after the company reported a third-quarter profit of $7.4 million. The gain, equivalent to 56 cents a share, compares with a loss of $14 million, or $1.03 a share, in the third quarter last year for United Industrial Corp. The Hunt Valley company has benefited as the Bush administration has emphasized technologies that fit with the Defense Department's efforts to transform the military.

AVIANO, Italy -- Standing along a fence outside the Italian air base in this town, Jernej Jung and Vida Petrovcic listen for the rumble of a fighter taxiing down the runway. They crane their necks for a glimpse of the gray plane and then toss their heads back as it zooms into the sky on its bombing mission to Yugoslavia.In this northwestern Italian town at the foot of Mount Cavallo, the NATO air war in the Balkans has become something of a tourist attraction and a topic of debate.Day and night, the curious and the carefree gather along the fenced perimeter of the sprawling air base to watch the fire-tailed jets launching from the runways.

Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, was questioned by the Pentagon yesterday about a report that he had warned President Bush that the plan to attack Iraq lacked sufficient ground troops, according to military sources. Shinseki, on a flying tour of Army posts in Louisiana and Colorado yesterday, was asked to explain the report on NBC on Friday night, the sources said. He told reporters traveling with him that his conversations with the president are "private and privileged."

WASHINGTON - The last entrenched force of Taliban fighters, in the southern Afghanistan stronghold of Kandahar, is proving particularly difficult to defeat, preventing the advance of U.S. Marines, defense officials said yesterday. The Taliban forces, some armed with shoulder-fired missiles, are a threat to U.S. aircraft, which are being used to assist Afghan tribes attempting to capture the city, they said. The tribal forces lack sufficient numbers to defeat the dug-in Taliban fighters, thought to number between 3,000 and 17,000.