President’s September 2006 Message: Presidents Message: Here we are already going into our second half of this year. Time sure goes by fast. I believe we had a very successful first half-year: • We successfully completed our separation from the American Aviation Historical Society. We truly appreciate the support we received from you, our members. • We have had three very successful general meetings. • There was an excellent side tour of Cal Pacific Airmotive P-51 restoration facility in Salinas. Unfortunately our planned boat outing past the battleship Iowa in Suisun Bay had to be cancelled at the last moment due to the tour operator advising us that they had a major mechanical problem with the tour boat. Matt Mintz really put in a lot of work on setting up this tour and, unfortunately, there was a lot of work to notify everyone who had signed up that it was cancelled. We appreciate Matt's hard work. It may be re-scheduled in the future. • We are financial healthy. • Our membership count has grown. • Many of our members have been participating in other aviation activities such as attending airshows, volunteering at air museums, writing articles and books for publication, working in aviation, etc. Now I would like to divert from our society's activities to what I believe will soon be the loss of a major piece of aviation history in California. It has recently become apparent to me that major aircraft design and manufacturing in California is nearing an historic milestone. Unfortunately it is not a good milestone. I follow current aviation activities as well as historical, and this has led to the conclusion that within just a couple of years, California almost certainly will no longer have any major aircraft design and manufacturing activities (note: Scaled Deposit's is an extremely successful but a niche player) in the future. This follows historically since the early 1930s of California having been a major player in this important aspect of aviation. The design activities have already ceased with the last airplanes being the McDonnell Douglas (subsequently Boeing by a takeover) C-17, four engine long range, military transport. It appears that the C-17 will be the grand finally for California in aviation manufacturing. Historical giants such as Convair, Douglas, Lockheed, North American, Northrop, and Ryan have already gone into history as aircraft design and manufacturing firms from California. My guess is that these companies probably built more than 200,000 airplanes since the 1930s. The sole remaining manufacturing activity is the C-17 in Long Beach, but the Department of Defense (DoD) has recently stated, very publicly, that it does not intend to order additional C-17s past the current order for 180 aircraft. Production is already up to 155 aircraft. This means that without a DoD change of mind, the C-17 production run will be over in about two years. Boeing has already notified its suppliers and foreign governments who have bought the C-17 that this is likely to be the end of the C-17 production. Many members of Congress are skeptical that the DoD has made the right decision on termination C-17 production at 180 aircraft and are putting pressure on the DoD to change its position. The Senate, in a by-partisan vote, voted in November 2005, 89-8 to authorize 42 more C-17s. They believe we need more heavy airlift capability with all the worldwide missions that the U.S. is currently involved with and might be involved in the future. As of now the DoD seems to be holding very firm. We will have to wait and see. It may be soon up to aviation historians to be sure that California's long time roll in this aspect of aviation is not forgotten. I am looking forward is seeing many of you at our Oct. 14 meeting. -Norm Jukes Past President Messages are linked below:
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