CRASH LANDING : Aerospace in the Valley

Hollywood gave the San Fernando Valley its worldwide renown, but it was the aerospace industry that, until recently, supplied the economic backbone.

In 1942, when Bing Crosby was singing his hit “San Fernando Valley,” Lockheed put the Valley on the aviation map with its massive wartime buildup at its Burbank plant, turning out the legendary Lightning, Harpoon and Flying Fortress warplanes.

By the time “Laugh In” made its debut from “beautiful downtown Burbank” in 1968, the industry was thriving in the midst of the Cold War, space race and growth of commercial aviation. Hughes Aircraft, Litton Industries, Northrop, Rocketdyne and the numerous smaller companies that supplied them had major outposts in the Valley.

In 1980s, when Moon Unit Zappa celebrated the totally awesome speech patterns of the “Valley Girl,” the Reagan Administration pumped new life into the armament industry. In that decade, Lockheed alone won contracts to built the MILSTAR military satellites, the Trident II missile operation systems and a new rocket motor for the space shuttle.

But by the time Johnny Carson told the last of his Valley jokes in 1992, the Cold War was over. The Valley which had reaped the rewards of the aerospace industry out of proportion to the rest of the country, was hit hard. While aerospace employment from 1987 to 1991 dropped 10.7% overall in the United States, it plunged 20.3% in Los Angeles County.

Retraining Retraining was touted as the single best hope for hundreds of laid-off aerospace workers. With a bit of education, it was argued, the displaced could make a new life in emerging industries, such as environmental engineering. Some programs were subsidized by the federal government. Results have been mixed.

“There was a retraining program at West Los Angeles College in hazardous waste disposal and I thought that might be a good thing to get into now. With my background, I thought I could be supervising crews or ding paperwork.

A few in my class did end up with jobs, but not many and they ranged from being very good to very menial. The best offer I got was in South Bay, where they were offering $8 or $9 an hour to clean out barrels. No benefits.

“It would not pay for me to travel all that way every day. I kind of gave up.”

Gary Remson, 38, of Sherman Oaks was a computer systems manager and support person at Hughes Aircraft for six years before being laid off. He now teaches part time.

“I really enjoyed working with lasers, but there were just no jobs out there.

“I looked at the classified ads in the newspaper and it seemed to me that the one engineering field where there was still opportunity was in environmental work. I’m now in a master’s program in environmental engineering.

“It’s a big field that includes the treatment of water for the drinking supply, treatment of sewage, the problems of contaminated soil. Some of the people in my class are already getting interviewed for jobs.”

Pete Roullard, 45 of Agoura has a Ph.D. in physics. He worked in research at Rocketdyne for four years before being laid off.

Status of Top Five Companies

* Hughes Aircraft: Its missile plant on an 85-acre site in Canoga Park will close and go on sale next year. About 1,900 local jobs will be lost.

* Northrop: The Palmdale plant, employing 4,000, is used for assembly of the B-2 bomber. That program will end in 1997 and prospects for the plant after that are uncertain.

* Rocketdyne: Probable upcoming cuts in the space station program could lead to cutbacks at this Rockwell International division that makes rocket engines.

* Litton Industries: About 700 jobs will be eliminated at its navigation systems unit in Woodland Hills by 1995.

* Lockheed: The once mighty keystone of Valley aerospace will be out of its former flagship plant in Burbank by next year.

Declining Employment

Most of the leading aerospace firms in the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys have seen their work forces dwindle in recent years. Lockheed: High 90,000 (in 1943) Lockheed: Current 4,850 Hughes: High 4,100 (in 1985) Hughes: Current 2,100 Rocketdyne: High 17,750 (in 1964) Rocketdyne: Current 6,000 Litton: High 7,000 (in 1988) Litton: Current 3,750 Northrop: High 4,000 (in 1993) Northrop: Current 4,000

Lockheed’s Historical Impact

For more than 60 years, Lockheed was a driving force in the aerospace industry in the Valley.

* 1928: Lockheed moves from Hollywood into a building partly occupied by a glassworks in Burbank. Accelerates production of its popular Vega airplane.

* 1938: First flight of the Hudson bomber, a mainstay for the Allies in World War II.

* 1944: First flight of the XP-80 Shooting Star, a fighter designed in top secret in a building affectionately dubbed the Skunk Works.

* 1945: First flight of the Constellation, a plane that becomes one of the most popularamong commercial airliners.

* 1951: In conjunction with the Air Force, new facilities are built in Palmdale.

* 1955: First flight of the U-2 spy plane, developed in the Skunk Works.

* 1968: First flight of the C-5, a huge military transport capable of carrying tanks and helicopters.

* 1983: MILSTAR military communications satellites begin production.

* 1986: New corporate headquarters open in Calabasas.

* 1988: Air Force confirms existence of the F-117 Stealth fighter, developed in the Skunk Works.

* 1990: Company announces it will leave Burbank in the mid-1990s, transferring most of its operations to Georgia and the Skunk Works to Palmdale.

* 1993: Bulldozers destroy the last of the abandoned Skunk Works buildings in Burbank.