SKY SCHOOL COLLEGE STUDENTS REPAIR PLANES FOR AIR PARK.

Byline: Marci Wormser Staff Writer

PALMDALE - Antelope Valley College sophomore Betsy Luahiwa believes it's important to preserve Antelope Valley's rich aviation history.

That's why she and other future aircraft mechanics in the college's Airframes and Power program were spending part of their spring break refurbishing a 40-year-old Navy A-4 Skyhawk at the Air Force Plant 42 Heritage Airpark.

``The area has a lot of aerospace so we have a lot of people interested in the older planes,'' Luahiwa said.

Expected to open this year, the airpark on Avenue P and 25th Street East will be a showcase of retired and restored airplanes with ties to Plant 42, a production and flight test installation for more than 50 years.

Luahiwa and classmates Stephen Lopez, Tim Gaines, Jerry Shatzer and James Dillard spent the two-day period closing access panels and fabricating a new panel to cover the airplane's stripped underbody.

As part of the Airframes and Power program, students learn how to repair the bodies and engines of old airplanes, Luahiwa said. After students complete the two-year program, they must pass a test to get licensed. The program, which is held at Fox Field, is regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Shatzer, who will graduate from the program this spring, said he enrolled after spending several years working on aircraft. His interest in airplanes, he said, started when he served in the Navy.

``The ultimate job would be to restore old World War II airplanes,'' Shatzer said.

Luahiwa said she joined the aerospace program after tiring of a retail career. She said she would like to work in the Antelope Valley after she graduates his summer.

The students said their task is particularly time worthy because this year marks the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' first powered airplane flight on Dec. 17, 1903.

The old Navy Skyhawk, a small, single-engine attack jet, came from China Lake Naval Weapons Center. Built starting in the 1950s by McDonnell Douglas, the U.S. military phased out the craft in the 1970s but some remain in service with other nations.

``I'm sure it flew in Vietnam,'' Shatzer said of the air park's plane.

Although the students said they volunteered part of their spring break to gain experience in their future careers, not all volunteers at the air park aspire to work in the aerospace field.

Louis Provencio, a retired U-2 spy plane supervisor at Lockheed Skunk Works, has been refurbishing old airplanes as a volunteer for nine years.

On Thursday, Provencio and two other airplane enthusiasts spent the day refurbishing a 1950 Jet Star, owned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and recently acquired by the air park.

The airplane was shipped to the air park from its former home at Edwards Air Force Base, Provencio said. For the move, the medium-sized twin-engine test plane had to have its wings removed.

The volunteers have reattached the wings and are planning to give the plane a new coat of paint, reattach its wheels and fix up the interior.

Provencio, a World War II veteran, said he has been working on airplanes since he was 16.

``It's in my blood,'' he said.

Air park volunteer Jim Berry has been an airplane aficionado since he was a mechanic in the Air Force Reserve in the 1950s.

Berry said he gets more enjoyment out of refurbishing planes than his real job.

``It's probably what I should have done in the first place, but I became a lawyer instead,'' he said.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Antelope Valley College students Tim Gaines and Stephen Lopez work on an A-4 Skyhawk plane at Heritage Airpark.

(2 -- color) James Berry, a retired Los Angeles County deputy district attorney, works Thursday on the tail section of a Lockheed Jet Star from the 1950s at the air park.

(3) Students Betsy Luahiwa and Jerry Shatzer work on the avionics bay of an A-4 Skyhawk.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer