LOCKHEED EXPECTS EMPLOYMENT BOOST.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Daily News Staff Writer

Lockheed Martin ``Skunk Works'' officials predict their Palmdale employment will increase from about 3,700 today to nearly 6,000 workers by the end of next year.

The additional workers would be employed on previously announced projects - such as aircraft service work transferred from Ontario and the X-33 spacecraft prototype - and on the proposed Joint Strike Fighter, for which Lockheed Martin Corp. officials believe they will be one of two companies picked to build prototypes.

``We fully expect it to be McDonnell Douglas and us,'' Denny Thompson, Skunk Works executive vice president, said Tuesday.

Not all of the increase will be workers hired off the street, however. For example, Lockheed will have about 600 workers in Palmdale on the X-33 program by the end of next year, and an added 300 employees of subcontractors such as Allied Signal.

But only about a quarter of the 600 X-33 workers will be new hires, with others transferred from elsewhere in the corporation.

The federal government is scheduled to decide in November which two of three teams of aerospace companies will build two prototypes each of the Joint Strike Fighter, which would replace the F-16, F-18 and AV-8B Harrier fighter-bombers.

McDonnell Douglas is teamed with Northrop Grumman Corp. and British Aerospace Plc. Lockheed is working with Rolls-Royce Plc of Britain and privately held Allison Engine Co. Boeing's partners are Rolls-Royce and another British company, GEC-Marconi.

The two prototypes would be built in Palmdale if Lockheed's team is one of the two selected. If the company gets the full production contract - for a projected 3,000 fighters - the assembly would be down in Fort Worth, Texas, where F-16s are now built.

The X-33 is prototype for a new kind of spacecraft that would blast off like a rocket and land like an airplane, without the need for external booster rockets like the space shuttles use.

The X-33, which would have no pilot, would not be able to go into orbit, but is designed to prove the design can work by blasting off from Edwards Air Force Base on 15 test flights going as high as 160,000 feet and as fast as 15 times the speed of sound.

The craft is scheduled to fly by early 1999, and complete its 15 flights by the end of that year, officials said.

``The X-33 is really just a stepping stone to space,'' said Jerry Rising, X-33 program manager.

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Photo: (color in AV only) Lockheed Martin ``Skunk Works'' o fficials say projects such as aircraft service work transferred from Ontario and the X-33 spacecraft prototype will employ more Antelope Valley workers.