Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Pep Rally Backs Keeping Air Force Plant 42 Open

More than 100 people, mostly civic and business leaders, gathered at Blackbird Airpark Friday for a pep rally in support of Air Force Plant 42, subject of a study to determine whether it should be closed.

While the Air Force’s Aeronautical Systems Center said all along the study was nothing more than a “what if” review, and a recent letter from a top Air Force official confirmed this, officials said the community needs to show its support for keeping Plant 42 operating.

“We’ve played a role in history, we also have to set the stage for the future,” said Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford, one of several speakers during the short rally. “I’m ready to do whatever it takes to maintain this facility, to promote it.”

About 8,000 people work at Plant 42, the second-largest employer in the Antelope Valley, behind Edwards Air Force Base.

“Plant 42 is more than jobs in the Antelope Valley,” Lancaster Mayor Arnie Rodio said. “It’s the defense of our country.”

Over the years, many of the military’s top aircraft--including the F-104 fighter jet, B-1 bomber, U-2 and SR-71 reconnaissance planes and T-38 trainer--have been built or flight-tested at Plant 42, a 5,700-acre facility owned by the government and operated by aerospace contractors.

Northrop is assembling the B-2 stealth bomber at Plant 42 and Lockheed has nearly completed relocation of its top-secret Skunk Works--builder of the F-117 stealth fighter--from Burbank to Palmdale.

“If you look at all the new buildings going up, the people moving up here, you know how we feel about Plant 42,” said Lockheed Advanced Development Co. President Sherman Mullin.

U. S. Rep. Howard P. (Buck) McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) came up with the idea for the rally after news of the study on its future was leaked to reporters. “This is a national treasure,” McKeon said of Plant 42.

Assemblyman William J. (Pete) Knight (R-Palmdale), a retired Air Force colonel and record-setting test pilot, called for more research and development work at the plant.

He also put in a plug for the Palmdale-based research on the National Aero-Space Plane, the proposed hypersonic craft--meant to take off like an airplane and fly into orbit in space--that has steadily lost congressional support. “That’s what will keep Plant 42 alive.”

Knight has said before that if there are not enough military production and flight test programs to keep the facility fully utilized, it might be more beneficial to the community for the Air Force to pull out so the plant could be used by private industry.