LONG BEACH, Calif. – In the corner of a cavernous factory, the last Boeing 717 is wrapped in scaffolding, getting its finishing touches.
Its delivery to AirTran Airways in May will mark the end of seven decades of commercial airplane production in Southern California.
At another sprawling complex nearby, thousands of workers still produce the Boeing C-17 military cargo plane. However, there are no new orders for the aircraft in the proposed Defense Department budget.
If congressional efforts to restore the program fail, the last of those flying warehouses will be delivered in 2008, and all airplane production would end in California – once the center of commercial and military airplane construction in the nation.
“More aviation history has been made in Southern California than in any other place in the world,” said Bill Schoneberger, author of “California Wings,” a history of aviation in the state.
“But we’ve evolved. The aeronautics industry has moved from an airplane business into a systems business,” he said.
Indeed, as corporate consolidation and defense cuts sent airplane production to Renton and Everett, St. Louis and other regions, Southern California has moved from metal bending to aerospace research and development.
Today’s workers build satellites, helicopters and unmanned surveillance drones while developing rockets and military jets that are made elsewhere.
Southern California aviation history dates to the early 1900s and features pioneers such as Howard Hughes, Jack Northrop and Donald Douglas, whose Douglas Aircraft built the DC-1 in 1933, one of the first commercial passenger planes ever made.
With weather that accommodated year-round flying, the region drew companies that produced bombers and fighter planes during World War II. Later came passenger liners such as the wide-body MD-11 and space vehicles that included the Apollo capsule and space shuttle.
As the nation’s defense priorities shifted, Northrop Grumman Corp. went from building B-2 stealth bombers and other planes in the region to providing electronic warfare systems, including the Global Hawk unmanned surveillance plane, built in San Diego.
Boeing builds satellites in El Segundo. And at a research facility in Palmdale, Lockheed Martin Corp. is developing the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the next generation warplane.
California’s congressional delegation believes the high-wing, four-engine C-17 still has a place in that arsenal.
“We live in a time of uncertainty. No one knows how many C-17s we will need,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said during a recent tour of the factory in Long Beach that employs 6,000 people.
The cargo plane has been used since 1991 to airlift heavy equipment and transport troops. Supporters say its ability to land on short dirt runways has helped take the load off supply trucks that come under heavy fire in Iraq and Afghanistan.
To replace the C-17, the Defense Department will consider acquiring a proposed new tanker aircraft and modernizing another transport plane, the larger C-5.
Only 180 more C-17 planes remain on order in California. The planes cost about $154 million each.
Ron Marcotte, Boeing vice president of global mobility systems, said it could take billions of dollars and several years to restart the program if it shuts down.
“It’s the suppliers and the learning of this work force which would go away overnight,” he said.
No effort is in the works to save the Boeing 717, a mid-size, twin-jet passenger plane that struggled to find its market.
Boeing has sold 155 of the planes since the first delivery in 1999. Many of the unionized workers on the assembly line have transferred to the C-17 program or been placed in jobs at other aerospace companies.
The final 717 is being painted and checked out for final delivery. The names of the 800 workers who built it have been scrawled on the inside skin of its fuselage and covered by metal paneling.
Many have worked on airplanes for a quarter-century or more.
Boeing employee Kelly Jenson spent 21 years building passenger planes before shifting to the C-17, where his fate is uncertain.
“We spend a minimum of eight hours a day here, sometimes 10 or 12,” Jenson said. “We’re with each other more than we’re with our family. This is our family.”
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