AEROSPACE FILLS VOID IN ANTELOPE VALLEY.

Byline: Jim Skeen Daily News Staff Writer

After a decade of defense downsizing put it into a financial tailspin, the Antelope Valley is transforming its aerospace industry and fueling a new age of military might and space commerce.

In top-secret laboratories and giant hangars, thousands are working on state-of-the-art craft - projects that not only strengthen the region's economy but lead the way to the next frontier.

``I see a shift to the space side,'' said Vern Lawson Jr., executive director of the Lancaster Economic Development Corp. ``The future is going to be space.''

Filling the void left by the dwindling defense industry are aircraft prototyping, subassembly work and space ventures - the last category being one that may make the Antelope Valley a spaceport for the 21st century.

At Air Force Plant 42, a production and flight installation created at the dawn of the Cold War to take advantage of open spaces, clear skies and proximity to Edwards Air Force Base, 9,800 workers are toiling on various aerospace programs.

Covering more than 5,800 acres of concrete, asphalt and sagebrush, Plant 42 is home to hangars and assembly complexes used by America's largest remaining aircraft companies: Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman. Lockheed Martin Skunk Works occupies its own massive complex just outside the Plant 42 fence.

Plant 42 employment is at the highest level this decade but still below what it was during the Reagan administration's defense buildup. In 1987, for example, B-1B bomber production pushed the Plant 42's work force to nearly 12,000.

B-1B production ended in 1989 and job cutbacks - coupled with a statewide recession - put the region into a steep economic slide from which it is just now emerging.

The Antelope Valley has been fortunate to avoid military base closures that have struck Long Beach and Victorville. Edwards, where Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier almost 51 years ago, remains a job site for some 13,000 civilian and military personnel testing the Air Force's latest jets.

``Overall, we fared better than other regions. We are very fortunate to dodge that bullet,'' said Howard Brooks, executive director of the Antelope Valley Board of Trade, an organization that lobbies for aerospace work.

Among the projects securing the valley's position is VentureStar, a reusable spacecraft under development by Lockheed Martin that would take off like a rocket and land like an airplane without shedding any boosters or fuel tanks like conventional rockets and the shuttle now do.

A prototype for VentureStar - the X-33 - is being built in Palmdale and is scheduled to blast off next July from a launch pad at Edwards Air Force Base.

California is among 17 states vying to build a permanent VentureStar launch site, with Lancaster, Vandenberg Air Force Base and San Bernardino County in the running for the exact location.

Assemblyman George Runner, R-Lancaster, successfully sponsored legislation for a statewide sales tax exemption for commercial space operations in a bid to strengthen the state's position in attracting VentureStar, and he pushed for state aid for building a launch site.

``Whenever California does well in aerospace, Antelope Valley does well in aerospace,'' Runner said.

And a study commissioned by two Los Angeles development organizations suggested that the Southland could pick up 73,000 aerospace jobs over the next 20 years and urged leaders to seek out space work.

``Commercial space is the state's best hope for the future of aerospace and defense,'' said the report for the Los Angeles Regional Technology Alliance and the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. ``This segment alone has the potential to contribute 40 percent of all aerospace and defense jobs in Southern California.''

Lockheed Martin

Much of the Antelope Valley's optimism centers on Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, which moved to Palmdale from Burbank in the early 1990s. Today, Skunk Works has 5,800 employees, the largest aerospace work force in the Antelope Valley and the highest level since the company arrived.

In addition to the X-33 VentureStar, aimed at significantly lowering the cost of getting satellites and other cargo into space, Skunk Works employees are developing prototypes for the joint strike fighter - described by one analyst as ``the biggest defense program out there in the entire world.''

Over the next 20 or 25 years, some 3,000 stealthy fighter-bombers could be built for the Air Force, Navy, Marines and British Royal Navy, replacing the Air Force F-16, the Navy F/A-18 and the Marine AV-8B Harrier.

While the joint strike fighter is due to be assembled in Georgia if Lockheed Martin wins the contract, Skunk Works employees in Palmdale would build parts for it.

Lockheed Martin also recently moved its Aircraft Services Unit to Skunk Works, bringing some 800 workers to Palmdale from Ontario. They customize aircraft for the U.S. military, private companies and other countries, such as C-130 cargo planes outfitted for U.S. special forces or A-4 Skyhawks modernized for Argentina.

The company also produces parts for the F-22 Raptor - the stealthy, high-speed replacement for the Air Force's F-15 Eagle - which Lockheed Martin assembles in Georgia.

Boeing

Things are also on an upswing at Boeing's Reusable Space Systems division in Plant 42, which has evolved from a boom-and-bust space shuttle modification operation to a relatively stable shuttle modification and part manufacturing operation.

In the past, the company employed about 300 workers each time a shuttle orbiter returned for inspections and modifications, then laid off nearly all of them when the shuttle returned to Florida.

Now Boeing augments the shuttle work by providing parts for Boeing's commercial aircraft operations, building external umbilical assemblies for the shuttle fleet and building wire harnesses and tube assemblies for the International Space Station.

Today there are about 750 workers at Boeing's space division in Palmdale, including about 350 people modifying the orbiter Atlantis, which will be delivered back to NASA this week. Boeing is negotiating with NASA to bring the orbiter Columbia to Palmdale for modifications in early 1999.

``That's always going to be a fight,'' Brooks said of convincing NASA to do the shuttle work at Air Force Plant 42 rather than at Kennedy Space Center. ``Every couple of years we're going to have to prove California is the economical place to do that work.''

Things are less certain with Boeing's aircraft operations. For several years the company performed modifications on the B-1B bomber fleet in Palmdale, but that work is now slated to go to Oklahoma.

Boeing also is vying for the joint strike fighter contract and is building its prototypes in Palmdale. The company hopes to be able to shift as many of its B-1B workers over to the joint strike fighter program as possible, officials say.

The company also plans to build any future ``X-planes'' - experimental aircraft - in the Antelope Valley.

Northrop Grumman

The Los Angeles-based company has only one project in the Antelope Valley - modifications on the B-2 stealth bomber fleet, which was assembled in Palmdale through last year. That modification work will continue to 2000, when the 2,500-member work force will shrink dramatically.

Northrop Grumman officials expect some continuing work on bomber airframes in Palmdale, but most of the inspection and overhaul work will be done in Oklahoma.

Tracor

Just across the street from Boeing's B-1B operation is Tracor Flight Systems Inc.'s Palmdale plant, which is playing a growing role in producing Boeing's twin-engine, 100-seat 717 airliner.

Tracor has 52 workers in Palmdale and expects to increase the number to 150 over the next three years. They assemble wings and lower-fuselage sections for the 717, a McDonnell Douglas design produced in Long Beach.

At Mojave, 250 Tracor workers convert Vietnam-era F-4 fighter jets into QF-4 remote-controlled drones for use as targets for the U.S. Air Force.

Tracor was recently acquired by London-based General Electric Company Plc.'s Marconi North America group.

The marriage of Tracor and Marconi is a good one, company officials said, because it combines a builder of aircraft subsystems - Marconi - with an assembly company.

The deal gives Marconi North America $2.3 billion in annual sales and makes it the sixth-largest defense contractor in the world.

Rotary Rocket

Also at the Mojave Airport, a San Francisco-based company called Rotary Rocket is spending $5.5 million to build a manufacturing and office complex for its unique design for a reusable spacecraft.

When finished, the Rotary Rocket complex will include a hangar, a high-bay 75-foot-tall building, a three-story office building and a visitor center. The complex, expected to be completed by early 1999, will accommodate 100 workers.

Its Roton rocket, which would be assembled and tested at Mojave Airport, would take off vertically like a conventional rocket, fly into low Earth orbit, release its payload and then return.

On its descent, helicopterlike rotors would deploy from the nose, slowing the craft for its landing.

If successful, Roton would be a relatively cheap way for companies to put communication satellites into orbit, company officials said.

The company estimates there will be more than 2,000 communication satellite launches in the next decade - a potential market of $10 billion.

Scaled Composites

Mojave Airport's most famous operation is Scaled Composites, founded by Burt Rutan, who designed the spindly Voyager that his brother flew around the globe without refueling in 1986.

Now a subsidiary of Massachusetts-based Wyman/Gordon Co., Scaled Composites designs and builds one-of-a-kind aircraft and other specialty projects. In Montrose, Colo., Scaled and Wyman/Gordon have launched a new company, Scaled Technology Works, to take projects and processes developed in Mojave into production.

Scaled will show off its latest project, a high-altitude, multipurpose jet called Proteus, this week at a Mojave Airport demonstration.

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Box: A look at the projects of the Aerospace Valley

Research, Jim Skeen, Graphics Dionisio Munoz/Daily News