These Valley’s aerospace centers – Edwards AFB and AF Plant 42 – employ more than 17,834 workers combined with payrolls of $1.2 trillion. Combined contracts to local businesses total $707 million per year.
According to the 2011 GAVEA economic Roundtable Report, the ranking of AV’s largest employers includes Edwards in first place with 10,610, followed by Lockheed Martin, 3rd, at 3,100, Northrop Grumman, 6th, at 2,611, and Boeing, 14th, at 840.
From the first flight of the jet aircraft in 1942 to today’s testing of the Joint Strike Fighter, Edwards Air Force Base stands out as “our national treasure, continuing to test the country’s most advanced aircraft,” AFFTC Commander Brig. Gen. Robert C. Nolan II said at a AV Board of Trade’s January luncheon.
He reminded his listeners that Gen. Henry “Hap” Arnold had the vision in 1932 to create Edwards because he liked the dry lakebeds, remoteness of the location and clear skies. Other notable occurrences at Edwards include Chuck Yeager's flight that broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1, test flights of the North American X-15, the first landings of the Space Shuttle, and the 1986 around-the-world flight of the Rutan Voyager.
As the general previewed the current flight test schedule, he emphasized that the base generates more than $2 billion in the local economy as well as employs 10,000 military and civilian personnel.
“You must remember how this impacts business in the Valley,” Nolan said.
Optimistically, the base still is home to flight testing of both manned and unmanned air vehicles, as well as the Test Pilot School, according to Nolan. The school’s class of pilots will be reduced from 24 to 20 by 2014 because of budget cuts.
The current major flight test program is the evolving Joint Strike Fighter, which is a stealthy supersonic airplane being developed to replace a variety of U.S. and the United Kingdom’s military fighters. Now testing six aircraft, AFFTC will have a total of 20 within a year: two for the UK and six for each of the three armed services.
Also the Raptor F-22 fighters, which were grounded for five months, are undergoing extensive testing after pilots reported symptoms of hypoxia or lack of oxygen. “The test pilots are the guinea pigs” for the tests to determine what is happening to the planes’ oxygen system, said the general.
While the Airborne Laser program is being phased out this year, Edwards is looking forward testing on Boeing’s KC-16, the new aerial tanker, the general said .
Since the arrival of the big aircraft manufacturers the Valley has produced a sizeable number of subcontractors for parts and services located in both cities. But according to GAEVA president Mel Layne, it is difficult to obtain facts about these businesses for his economic reports because of the confidential and competitive nature of their contracts with the Air Force and the private industrial giants.
As an example, Donald Rhea at the same luncheon sketched the history of ClancyJG International that was founded by partners Rhea and John Clancy in 2008 to provide technical, management and operations services to government and commercial aerospace companies. Combined, the two men have 75 years of aircraft-related experience and have been successful in parlaying their talents in getting lucrative contracts since then.
Rhea said that the Lancaster-headquartered company works with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Department of Defense (DoD), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
