PLANT 42 APPEARS SECURE WORK ONGOING ON U-2, F-117, GLOBAL HAWK.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

PALMDALE - Antelope Valley's second largest job center after Edwards Air Force Base, Air Force Plant 42 looks to be a stable base of employment despite the loss of space shuttle work and the uncertainty surrounding SR Technics, the commander said.

No major shifts in employment are on the immediate horizon for Plant 42, whose aerospace contractors employ about 9,000 people, said Lt. Col. Celeo Wright.

``I see Plant 42 staying at least where it is today,'' Wright said. ``It's still very viable.''

Lockheed Martin's Palmdale plant is going strong with U-2, F-117, F-22 and joint strike fighter work and Northrop Grumman is poised to expand its Global Hawk spy plane work, but space shuttle modification work is moving to Florida and SR Technics has slashed jobs because of its parent company's woes.

NASA leases Plant 42's Site 1, where all the space shuttles were built and all but one of the major shuttle modification projects were performed.

``NASA has it leased through this fiscal year,'' Wright said. ``Right now, it appears NASA is going to hold onto it.''

The other sites occupied by aerospace contractors all have steady work scheduled for the future.

The plant's Site 2 is being used by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. for a program to upgrade the cockpits of the U-2 spy planes. Work on that program will run through 2007.

Lockheed Martin also operates out of Site 7, using it for an ongoing contract to modify and maintain the F-117 stealth fighter fleet.

Northrop Grumman operates two sites, one for assembly of the Global Hawk reconnaissance plane and the other for B-2 stealth bomber modifications.

The Global Hawk is moving from a research program into production. Although the program employs only a handful of people, it is viewed by the company as a growth market.

Although a bid by Northrop Grumman to get the production line restarted for the B-2 bomber appears to be dead, the ongoing modification effort is supported by Congress.

Two sites adjoining Plant 42 do not belong to the Air Force, but they share Plant 42's runways and taxiways and their employment numbers are included in the installation's statistics.

Those sites are Site 9, owned by the city of Los Angeles World Airports and occupied by aircraft modification company SR Technics, and Site 10, owned and operated by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., which employs more than 3,000 people.

The future of SR Technics is a major question mark. The fledgling company started its aircraft modification work in August 2000 and hit an employment of close to 600. But its fortunes changed and it is now down to fewer than 200 workers.

The company is seeking new investors as the result of a complicated set of circumstances involving a general slump in the aircraft maintenance field, the aviation downturn after the Sept. 11 attacks and the failed expansion of the Swiss corporation SAirGroup.