California, Long the Nation’s Most Important State for Building Aircraft, Just Watched Its Last One Roll Off the Line

LGB - Long Beach

Since the beginning of powered flight, California and aviation have had a special bond. Early aircraft manufacturers swarmed to the Golden State to take advantage of all it had to offer: a growing, skilled workforce and great flying weather to start. But last weekend, the very last manned fixed wing aircraft to be manufactured in the state took to the skies in Long Beach. An important era in aviation has come to an end more than 100 years after it began.

LGB Douglas Plants

Has it really been 100 years? Yes it has, and a glorious hundred years at that. Allan and Malcolm Loughead founded their first aircraft company in 1912 in San Francisco; the same year Glenn L Martin founded his self-named company in Santa Ana. The legendary names that built the US aircraft industry roll right off the tongue. Allan Loughead teamed up with Jack Northrop to form Lockheed Aircraft Company. Jack Northrop eventually founded his own company in Hawthorne in the thirties. Then of course, there was Donald Douglas Sr. His company, Douglas Aircraft Company, was the predecessor to the company that rolled that last aircraft off the line this weekend.

The names go on and on. The Spirit of St Louis, the aircraft that made the first Transatlantic flight with Charles Lindbergh aboard, may have been named for St Louis, but it was built in San Diego. Howard Hughes built his monstrous Hercules (better known as the Spruce Goose) just north of where LAX is today, and it took its only flight just off the coast.

Aerospace became so important to California that at one point at the height of the Cold War, 15 of the top 25 aerospace companies were based in the state. By 1987, a quarter of all aerospace jobs in the US were in California.

Specifically from a commercial aviation perspective, California was incredibly important. Down in San Diego, Convair 240s became the first in a long, successful line of Convair props. The fast-but-fuel-sucking Convair 880 and 990 jets rolled off the line there as well. Further north, Lockheed built its famous airliners. Electras, Constellations, and eventually L1011s rolled off the lines in Burbank and Palmdale. Douglas built every version of its props and all of its jets (save for some that were built in China) at its plants in Santa Monica and Long Beach.

The innovative minds and pioneering spirit that powered the industry were legendary. It was so important to the development of California that it has even been memorialized at Disney’s California Adventure. You’ll find names of and bios for many local heroes when you enter the Soarin’ Over California ride.

The last thirty years, however, have seen a dramatic shrinking of the industry. After the Cold War, defense spending plummeted. Manufacturers started to merge and headquarters disappeared from the state. Lockheed merged with Martin and moved to the latter’s Maryland headquarters. Northrop merged with Grumman and now is headquartered outside DC. Long before, Douglas had merged with McDonnell and had its home base shift to St Louis. But it wasn’t until Boeing merged with McDonnell Douglas that the death knell was sounded for production in California.

We’ve all heard the stories before. California is not a business-friendly state. That’s particularly true for manufacturing operations where wages are naturally high (considering the high cost of living) and real estate is expensive. Between 1990 and 2011, two-thirds of the aerospace jobs in California disappeared.

As aircraft manufacturing dried up around the state, Long Beach became the last holdout. When Boeing merged with McDonnell Douglas, the entire Douglas commercial line was terminated in short order except for the MD-95. That became the Boeing 717 and made it all the way to May 23, 2006. On that day, the last two were rolled across Lakewood Blvd on the east side of the airport and delivered to AirTran and Midwest. Commercial aircraft production in the state died that day.

But on the west side of the field, the military C-17 soldiered on. The C-17 is a beast of an airplane. It’s a massive military transport that is essential for the US military. The problem is that the military has all the C-17s it needs. Production peaked at 16 a year in 2009, but that has been ramping down every year since. The aircraft was marketed to foreign countries and orders did roll in — enough to keep the production going for longer than expected — but the end has finally arrived.

The last airplane to be delivered took off from Long Beach around midday on Sunday. I wasn’t back in town from Thanksgiving yet, but here’s a video of the departure from jason s.

It headed to Texas where it will undergo some more work before heading to its owner (Qatar) next year, but this marked the end of the program in California on Sunday. People have been laid off slowly, some have been relocated while others have gone on to other jobs. But now the only people needed are those who will wind down what remains of the factory. (Yes ongoing maintenance will still be done in Long Beach, but that’s at a different facility.)

While this is a moment of reflection, it’s not as bad as it may sound. There are still a great number of aerospace jobs in California that focus on making parts and designing technology for aircraft. And helicopters are still made in the state, as are drones. But that doesn’t reduce the significance of that last C-17 taking to the skies. It truly is the end of an incredible era that built California into what it is today.

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13 comments on “California, Long the Nation’s Most Important State for Building Aircraft, Just Watched Its Last One Roll Off the Line

  1. Thoughtful post. Thanks.

    As a DL Plat, I’m on the 717 all the time. It’s excellent inside, and super quiet upfront. I was also recently on an HA flight from HNL-KOA, and though a slightly different experience, still a great little plane.

  2. Maybe the Bear Flag Republic needs its own Export-Import Bank to fight off the DC area, where the former HQs ended up to serve the misnamed “defense” industry’s Imperial Death Star at the Pentagram?

  3. Thanks for this Cranky. A lot a paychecks went out over the years here in California building aircraft. Last one out turn off the lights.

  4. Well, California does have a lot of new jobs from the space industry, so there are lots of things to look forward to.

  5. Thanks, Cranky,

    Quite an aircraft. If I’m not mistaken, the old Douglas C-124 Globemaster, was from Long Beach.

    Use to fly on it Space-A, VietNam years. Don’t recall it being pressurized, as you could look out onto earth at just about every fuselage joint, and when you needed to relieve yourself, liquid, that is, see that little hole over there? Nice! And,, never sure If we were going to make it over the Front Range, flying from Tacoma to San Antonio, but we always did!. Or, did we have to come down to San Bernardino, then east? Anyway, thanks, Long Beach!

    Someday, I may see the last 737 off the line, somewhere. And, thinking to myself, that was The aircraft we had to use transcon, UA. Who knew? And then along came the extended range regional, flown by SkyWest for UA, transcon and all, and remembering back at the 737 fondly.

  6. Thanks for this post, Cranky. Grew up in SAN and my late father, born in 1910, was one of the earliest #AvGeeks. Some of my first road trip memories are driving up to LGB to see planes rolling off the line…

  7. PPG’s Aerospace business unit is headquartered in California. Transparencies (Windows, cockpits, etc) are made in Sylmar. Coatings and sealants are made in Mojave and Irvine. R&D is conducted in Burbank. As a former Mojave employee, it’s always made me laugh to see planes at the Mojave graveyard. Coatings wound up back where they were made.

  8. It is sad to see aerospace wind down in Southern California. The early part of my career was in the aerospace/defense sector. As an MIT undergrad, I worked at Draper Labs, where inertial guidance was invented. I then moved to SoCal to work for Hughes Aircraft, JPL, McDonnell-Dougals just as Boeing purchased them, then back to JPL before leaving for biotech. I also had friends from school that worked on the Space Shuttle in Downey, and some that were stationed at Edwards AFB.

    During the late-1980s, I saw aerospace and defense downsize from the San Fernando Valley down to San Diego. I never thought I’d see aircraft production disappear from the region. It does seem like the tech sector is starting to gain traction here though. Wouldn’t it be ironic if future aerospace growth came out of that, just as some of the tech sector grew out of displaced aerospace workers.

  9. >But last weekend, the very last manned fixed wing aircraft to be manufactured in the state took to the skies in Long Beach

    A bit overblown; maybe “the last Big Iron aircraft…”. As one example, the Icon A5 is rolling off the assembly line in Vacaville.

  10. I was surprised to learn that California has increased the tax on the sale of military aircraft. This prompted me to look for more information and thanks to Blog https://www.agmglobalvision.com/government-and-volume-sales I found an extensive article on military sales. This decision appears to be an attempt to influence the military-industrial complex and is likely to have broad economic and political implications. The blog really helps to understand difficult situations and realize the deep impacts of such decisions.

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