Hi,
I have tested successfully Hibernate (v3.2.2) without EntityManager (using Session class). But, when trying to use EntityManger it seems not to insert/update any field.
The code is:

EntityManagerFactory emf = Persistence .createEntityManagerFactory("manager1");
EntityManager em = emf.createEntityManager();

Plane plane = new Plane("Boeing56", 85);
plane.setPassangers("90");
em.persist(plane);
em.flush();

em.close();
emf.close();

When I call the entityManager.flush() it does not insert any field and it throws:
Exception in thread "main" javax.persistence.TransactionRequiredException: no transaction is in progress

If I don't call flush() then the insert is not done too.

I have tried to get a field and then update it. This field was successfully found (Plane plane = em.find( Plane.class, "Boeing210" ); ) but I can not update it. This object was persisted in DDBB with save method of Session class in another code.

I am using:
Hibernate: 3.2.2
HSQLDB (server mode) 1.8.0

Here you have the full config and code:
/* resumed Plane class */
package airline;
public class Plane {
String name = new String();
int passangers = 0;
//getters, setters and consturctor
}

/* persistence.xml */
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<persistence>
<persistence-unit name="manager1" transaction-type="RESOURCE_LOCAL">
<class>airline.Plane</class>
<properties>
<property name="hibernate.dialect" value="org.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect"/>
<property name="hibernate.connection.driver_class" value="org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver"/>
<property name="hibernate.connection.username" value="sa"/>
<property name="hibernate.connection.password" value=""/>
<property name="hibernate.connection.url" value="jdbc:hsqldb:hsql://localhost/xdb"/>
<property name="hibernate.max_fetch_depth" value="3"/>
</properties>
</persistence-unit>
</persistence>

/* plane.hbm.xml */
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE hibernate-mapping PUBLIC
"-//Hibernate/Hibernate Mapping DTD 3.0//EN"
"http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/hibernate-mapping-3.0.dtd">
<hibernate-mapping package="airline">
<class name="Plane" table="PLANES">
<id name="name" column="NAME"/>
<property name="passangers" column="PASSANGERS"/>
</class>
</hibernate-mapping>

/* SQL to create the plane table */
CREATE TABLE PLANES (
NAME VARCHAR(20) NOT NULL ,
PASSANGERS INTEGER NULL,
PRIMARY KEY(NAME)
);

Yes, this is part of the spec



Updating outside a transaction is evil, start a transaction em.getTransaction().begin()