Lockheed AV chief sees bright future

Changes seek return to glory of Johnson, Rich

This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press February 21, 2001.

By DENNIS ANDERSON
Valley Press Editor

LANCASTER - Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. advanced development program operations are returning to "the way it was under Kelly Johnson and Ben Rich," the site manager and vice president for Palmdale operations said Tuesday.

The Palmdale unit that operated as the Skunk Works until last year has slimmed down, reorganized, stabilized and consolidated, and now has decades of work ahead of it on existing projects such as the F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter and the high-flying U-2 spy plane.

The company has a bright future in the Antelope Valley, company Vice President Richard Baker told a group of 100 Antelope Valley community leaders during a breakfast meeting at the Desert Inn organized by businessman Frank Visco.

As parent Lockheed Martin Co. faced troubled skies in the leadership, technology and stock value departments last year, the aeronautics branches of the nation's largest defense contractor moved to consolidate into a single organization to cut redundant costs.

The move downgraded the Skunk Works from an independent, stand-alone company. Lockheed Martin Aeronautics is now run from Fort Worth, Texas, with branches in Marietta, Ga., and Palmdale.

"Looking back on a year of difficult decisions, we can see now they were absolutely the right decisions," Baker said. "We are reorganized back to the way we were in Kelly's days and Ben Rich's day."

The LM Aero team employs 11,000 workers in Fort Worth, another 7,000 in Marietta and about 4,000 in Palmdale.

The advantage the California wing gains is that it gets to work on research and development, "the fun stuff," Baker said.

"Our role is the front end of the company."

Among the work that lies ahead are decades of modification work on cutting-edge-technology planes such as the F-117 and the U-2.

"During Desert Storm, the F-117 was phenomenal, but we can't stand on our laurels," Baker said. "Saddam Hussein has continued to upgrade, and we have to do that, too."

Baker lauded the F-117, a plane with "significance as a weapons system ... significance as a deterrent."

In similar fashion, he said the U-2 of today is not the plane that Francis Gary Powers flew over the Soviet Union in the depths of the Cold War.

"There are 35 planes - actually 37 - not one of them built before 1980," Baker said. He added the air frame and its sensor systems could be flying as late as 2080.

Unmanned aerial vehicles such as Global Hawk are on the horizon and provide potential because they can fly long endurance missions of 30 hours or more, but the U-2 can carry more than twice the payload and achieve greater altitude.

"The U-2 is going to be here for a while; the near term is 2030, 2040 or 2050," Baker said.

At the moment, Lockheed Martin and other giant defense contractors are in a holding pattern, waiting to see what the new Bush administration will do.

President George W. Bush has a three-pronged agenda, Baker noted. The first is to re-establish trust lost between much of the military and the White House during the Clinton administration.

The second priority is to provide for "defense of the homeland ... national defense," Baker noted. The third requirement for the Bush administration is to design the 21stcentury military force structure.

"What does it all mean? We don't know," Baker said.

The Air Force places first priority on getting the F-22 Raptor air dominance fighter built.

As for the joint strike fighter, the plane is designed to serve the Air Force, Navy and Marines, in addition to the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy of the United Kingdom. Because it is an international project, the forecast is probably favorable, but nobody has a crystal ball these days, Baker noted.

"Our approach until otherwise directed is to go with the status quo," Baker said.

That means pushing forward with the F-22, continuing the competition with The Boeing Co. on winning the JSF, pressing ahead with the X-33 reusable space vehicle prototype and advancing the company's various other cuttingedge ventures.

"Where do we go from here? There are a lot of opportunities up and down," Baker said. "I am the eternal optimist, and I believe in up."

For the LM Aero team's future horizon, a number of projects afford the company stability and bright prospects, he said.

The F-16 built in Texas has about 250 orders from countries such as Singapore, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates. The company is also developing the C-130 special operations configuration, "Big Safari."

The F-117, although the earliest model of production stealth weapons delivery system, looks to be in the Air Force arsenal for at least another 17 years, Baker said.

No matter where the joint strike fighter is placed in final assembly, "it will have a great deal of California content," Baker predicted.

Leading edge wing work and radome assembly (a nose section assembly that covers radar) for the F-22 Raptor is done in Palmdale, and similar work will probably be done in the Valley if Lockheed Martin wins the JSF competition.

In addition, the Palmdale operation of Lockheed Martin has a good deal of work to do supporting test flight out at Edwards Air Force Base.

If the advanced development program division in Palmdale does less manufacturing, it will probably continue to do more work in materials technology, Baker said.