Tiny Lancaster Store: Stealth Spoken Here

The black, boomerang-like Stealth B-2 bomber has been billed as one of the nation’s most closely guarded military secrets.

But in the irony of ironies, even before the jet’s November rollout and its much publicized test flight last month, information about the B-2 could be found by those-in-the-know at Thomas Aviation, a small aviation memorabilia store off Avenue K in Lancaster.

The store, which caters to the Antelope Valley’s legion of aerospace enthusiasts, is something akin to Lake Wobegon’s Chatterbox Cafe. Along with flight jackets, model airplanes and T-shirts, Thomas Aviation stocks technical manuals, Air Force histories and such obscure titles as the 1986 book “Stealth Aircraft: Secrets of Future Airpower” by Bill Sweetman.

Air Show Every Day

As a gathering spot for birds on a wire, the store takes second place perhaps only to the corner of Avenue N and the Sierra Highway, right under the end of the main runway at Air Force Plant 42, where many local residents watch what amounts to an air show every day.

On the bulletin board at Thomas Aviation, for example, Dale Punter, 29, has tacked up a card advertising the list of military frequencies he has compiled for listening to B-1 bomber missions and other military traffic in the area.

Isn’t that sort of stuff supposed to be secret? “Well,” Punter replied, “a lot of the frequencies that I have are available in the manuals. . . . And all of my B-1 frequencies I got from a pilot. I just asked him.”

At the cash register, a woman reluctant to give her name eagerly handed over $79.95, plus tax, for an elegant carved and laminated model of the Stealth bomber, the kind of toy that decorates the desks of Air Force officers.

“My husband works on the aircraft,” she said, explaining her purchase. “I just couldn’t say no when he said he wanted it. Except it’s frustrating because it’s so top-secret that I can’t ask any questions.”

Scores of Models

Thomas Rosquin, the store’s 37-year-old owner who also works as an assembly worker at Lockheed, has commissioned a craftsman in the Philippines to carve scores of the popular B-2 model since January.

Rosquin, who has lived in the Mojave Desert since 1962 and whose father worked in the aerospace industry, also has prodded T-shirt companies and mug makers to print Stealth bombers on products for him.

With all the publicity surrounding the advanced technology Stealth bomber, the cash register at Thomas Aviation has been ringing like Christmas, especially after the store was featured in a segment broadcast on Cable News Network, Rosquin said.

“Anything with B-2 on it is hot right now,” said Rosquin, who even sells a Stealth coffee mug, whose emblazoned image of the bomber disappears after coffee or any hot liquid is poured in.

There are, of course, aviation souvenir shops elsewhere in California and nationwide, often at NASA facilities such as the Ames-Dryden Flight Research Facility on Edwards Air Force Base. The Cockpit, two blocks off Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, sells stylish World War II flight jackets and an assortment of caps, scarves, mugs and models.

But the appeal of Thomas Aviation, which grew out of Rosquin’s enthusiasm and casual exchanges with colleagues of emblems, patches and other aviation souvenirs, somehow extends beyond tourism or fashion. Perhaps that is because its clientele reflects the Antelope Valley’s dominant aerospace industry and the fact that Edwards retains its acclaim as home of the prestigious U.S. Air Force Flight Test Center.

“There are a lot of aerospace workers who have retired here, and a lot of military people, too,” said Palmdale Mayor William J. (Pete) Knight, an X-15 test pilot who after 32 years in the service retired from the Air Force in 1982. Even today, he said, “The pinnacle of a test pilot’s dream is to go to Edwards and test a new airplane, a new weapons system.”

Even for an aspiring novelist like Dennis Anderson, moving to the Antelope Valley three years ago was like receiving keys to a dream playground. Anderson, a reporter for the Associated Press, began thinking about writing a novel involving the Stealth bomber shortly after his arrival, when he read a story in the Antelope Valley Press about a mysterious building going up at Air Force Plant 42.

He later found Thomas Aviation, then housed in a 266-square-foot storefront on Lancaster Boulevard. “There was everything in there a boy could want,” Anderson recalled. “Russian paratrooper insignias, joy sticks--I mean real joy sticks.”

He also discovered Sweetman’s book on stealth aircraft, whose design and materials are supposed to make them difficult for enemy radar to detect. As one thing led to another, Anderson met what he calls “the stealthies,” other curious area residents who also were fascinated by the bomber and its surrounding secrecy.

Once he started looking, Anderson said he couldn’t walk or drive anywhere without finding a wealth of aviation lore. There’s even a B-1 Liquor on Palmdale Boulevard.

“Glamorous Glennis is signature art out here,” Anderson said, referring to the decal pilot-astronaut Chuck Yeager had painted on the nose of the Bell X-1 jet he flew to break the sound barrier. “You see it popping up on cocktail napkins.

“By the time I started writing,” Anderson said of his novel, “Target Stealth,” published earlier this year by Warner Books under his pen name of Jack Merek, “I had a pretty good idea of what was going on at Plant 42.”

He found helpful information by talking with the stealthies and by reviewing such works as an old pilot’s manual for the YB-49, a 1940s Northrop-built craft that looked like a flying wing and was a predecessor for the B-2. He also said Sweetman’s book gave his research a needed boost. It led him to other industry sources.

Of course, nothing in Southern California stays the same, and even relative newcomers like Anderson fret that the area’s unique aviation connections will subside amid the phenomenal wave of Mojave Desert development.

“It’s like Orange County was when there still were orange groves there,” said Ray Vonier, 35, a lifelong resident who works on the Stealth bomber for Northrop. “I’d say the way things are going now, it won’t be long before you won’t be able to see a Joshua tree anywhere.”