Low Cost of Oceangoing Barges May Save Southland Jobs : Business: Civic leaders hope the eventual buyer of General Dynamics will realize that it is cheaper to keep operations here.

The parade begins and ends in the early morning hours, under the cover of darkness.

Several times each month, a stretch of Harbor Drive in San Diego and runways at Lindbergh Field are closed to traffic while five massive MD-11 passenger jetliner fuselage sections are trucked from General Dynamics’ Convair Division plant to a barge tied off near the Coast Guard station on San Diego Bay.

When the tides are right, a tugboat captain adeptly pulls the barge away from shore, sending the 147-foot, 45,600-pound fuselage sections on a 12-hour, 110-mile trip up the coast to the Port of Long Beach.

There, in the quiet before dawn, the fuselage parts are mounted on specially designed trailers and maneuvered through the streets of Long Beach to Douglas Aircraft Co.’s assembly plant at Long Beach Municipal Airport.

Few local residents have reason to be up and about to watch the early morning parades Convair has staged during the last two decades. But the unlikely spectacle is important to Southern California’s economic well-being and could be the factor that might keep 3,500 jobs in San Diego.

The barge represents the cheapest way to ship the fuselages, and with General Dynamics’ operations on the sale block, those lower costs might persuade an eventual buyer to keep the jobs in the area rather than consolidating elsewhere.

Those jobs were jeopardized early this year when General Dynamics said it would sell the MD-11 operation during a restructuring that will leave the Falls Church, Va.-based company focused on weapons systems and rockets.

That controversial restructuring also casts doubts about the jobs of an additional 4,500 Convair employees who work on cruise missile programs. Many of the missiles operations jobs could be lost if Hughes Aircraft Co., which is buying Convair’s missiles business, consolidates operations in Tucson.

Civic leaders are more optimistic, however, that the MD-11 operation’s eventual buyer will leave the complex fuselage manufacturing and assembly business in San Diego. The optimism is based largely on the longstanding relationship between Convair, which has served as the sole producer for nearly three decades of fuselage sections used to build Douglas’ KC-10, DC-10 and MD-11 aircraft.

A buyer that intends to consolidate the capital- and labor-intensive MD-11 line elsewhere would have to achieve “tremendous cost savings . . . before there could be any out-of-town consolidation,” according to Dan Pegg, president of the San Diego Economic Development Corp.

That’s because the 2.8-million-square-foot Lindbergh Field plant is filled with massive--and unique--machine tools and dies that are used to bend and bash the aluminum used to manufacture and assemble MD-11 jetliners.

General Dynamics officials have said that the Lindbergh Field plant’s closeness to Long Beach has “significant value” because finished fuselages can be trucked to the nearby barge landing for the relatively quick trip to Long Beach, Pegg said.

Although there are northbound railroad tracks near Convair’s plant, oceangoing barges “are the least costly of any option,” said Karl A. Wheeler, an MD-11 program manager at General Dynamics. “It really works out well.”

Even before General Dynamics announced its restructuring, the MD-11 program was in flux.

General Dynamics has the sole contract to produce 200 of the fuselage sections for Douglas. But in January, Douglas stretched out the delivery schedule; instead of building 50 fuselages during 1992, Convair will build about 40.

And, during 1991, General Dynamics failed to generate a profit from the MD-11 line, largely because Convair fell behind on production and was forced to hire additional workers and pay considerable overtime.

The company anticipates a return to profitability during 1992, General Dynamics spokeswoman Julie Andrews said.

Even with a seemingly endless list of potential problems--from tight deadlines, a complicated permit process and stormy weather to human error--it usually takes less than 24 hours for the fuselages to move from Lindbergh Field to Douglas’ Lakewood plant.

One of those trips ended at 3:55 a.m. on a recent day, when Convair’s 79th MD-11 fuselage assembly came to rest outside a massive hangar at the Douglas plant and a Douglas supervisor signed receipts for the aluminum cylinders. Later this year, Douglas will turn the 79th MD-11 over to a New York-based finance company, which will lease it to one of the world’s commercial airlines.

Two days before, in the late afternoon, Convair employees were putting the finishing touches on the 79th fuselage assembly. By 4 p.m., Convair crews had wrapped tarps around four of the five aluminum cylinders that range from 8.3 feet to 55.8 feet in length.

But the fifth and largest segment wouldn’t be ready for wrapping until Douglas officials signed off on a quality inspection form.

Paperwork completed, Convair employees used an overhead crane in the Lindbergh Field plant to drape the last fuselage sections with a specially designed tarp that weighs 1,200 pounds.

The 79th fuselage began its northward journey shortly before 4 a.m. June 4, when Convair manager Hank Massey,walkie-talkie in hand, urged crew members to “go ahead and roll ‘em.” Within minutes, the five assemblies, loaded on four trailers, began their ghostly procession.

As is the case throughout the journey, time was at a premium because “you don’t want to be out there when the airport opens,” Massey said.

When Mother Nature cooperates, the early morning procession coincides with the arrival of high tide--which gives the barge and tugboat enough water to approach General Dynamics’ dock. But on June 4, the fuselages remained on shore until shortly before 11 a.m. when the tide rose.

Convair employee Karl Shermon used an airport-style tractor to push the massive trailers onto the barge, no mean feat since Shermon’s line of sight was blocked by the enormous fuselages.

When the trailers were in position, crews from Long Beach-based Foss Maritime tied the fuselages in place. Then, tugboat Capt. Andy Anderson used the shallow-draft tug Palomar to pull the barge away from Convair’s bay-front facility allowing for the shifting wind, moving tide and the flotilla of pleasure boats moored near General Dynamics’ hangar.

In less than half an hour, the Palomar pushed and pulled the barge into deeper water, where the barge was hooked to a towline on the Pacific Titan, one of Foss’ larger, oceangoing tugs.

Shortly before 1 p.m., Capt. Bob Birdsellsteered the Titan past Ballast Point, set a course for Long Beach and turned the tug over to ship’s mate Steve Bobal.

Throughout his six-hour shift, Bobal used binoculars, radar and the ship’s radio to keep close tabs on oceangoing traffic and navigational buoys. Constant monitoring is the order of the day for tugboats because maneuvering takes time with a barge in tow.

Just north of La Jolla, however, traffic thinned out and the frenzied pace of the harbor gradually gave way to what Birdsell called “tugboat time.”

For the Titan’s crew, that meant constantly monitoring the radio and radar, and making adjustments to the 2-inch-thick towline that links the tug and barge.

At sea, the Titan’s four-man crew divides each trip into a succession of six-hour shifts. Shortly after leaving San Diego, Birdsell and engineer Steve Thruppretired to their cabins to sleep until 6 p.m. With Bobal in the wheelhouse, deckhand Nick Viazevich prepared a meal that included a fresh-tossed salad, corn on the cob, steak and sausage, and ice cream bars.

The Palomar continued on course until shortly before 11 p.m., when the tug’s radio brought word of a potential snag: The Titan wouldn’t be allowed to enter the Long Beach Ship Channel until after the oil tanker Umm Said departed at 12:30 a.m. Friday.

Birdsell throttled back on the Titan’s twin diesel engines, and Thrupp manipulated the tug’s electric winch to reel in the barge. As winds and tide pushed the tug and barge in circles, the Long Beach skyline glistened in the distance.

At 12:30, another snag developed: The Umm Said was slowly making its way out of Long Beach, but port officials directed the Titan to remain out of the shipping channel until after the inbound tanker Exxon Jamestown cleared Pier D, where the fuselages were to be unloaded.

Time, a plentiful commodity earlier in the day, was running short because the fuselages were scheduled to begin the final land leg of their journey at precisely 3 a.m.

Shortly before 2 a.m., the Titan slid in line behind the Jamestown, and Birdsell began the deft maneuvering required to keep the barge pinned against Pier D. In less than 10 minutes, drivers had moved the four trailers to a nearby staging area and the Titan moved up the channel to a nearby dock.

Despite the delays, crew members were confident that the last leg of the trip would go smoothly.

Just minutes after 3 a.m., the convoy of four trucks and 11 escort vehicles left the port and began the slow journey through the deserted streets of Long Beach.

At each intersection, escort vehicles with lights flashing stopped cross traffic. City crews pushed five traffic signals out of the way--at a cost of $285 per signal per trip. Heavy Transport last year paid nearly $7,000 to modify the original signal systems that were fixed in place.

Shortly before 4 a.m., security guards at Long Beach Municipal Airport unlocked a gate and the first truck crossed over a series of taxiways that ring Douglas’ Long Beach facility.

Within minutes, the trailers were parked in a line and a Douglas official had signed a delivery receipt.