Parker Aerospace and 60 other Orange County subcontractors are expected to get $1.2 billion in work from the $62 billion budgeted for the Air Force’s new fighter jet, the F-22 Raptor.
Irvine-based Parker Aerospace is getting the largest piece of the work. In the next 12 years, Parker Aerospace’s OC operations are expected to make $713 million worth of engine fuel nozzles, start control valves, flight control actuators and other parts for the F-22, which is being developed by Lockheed Martin Corp.
Boeing Co. and United Technologies Corp.’s Pratt & Whitney also are major contractors.
“We invented several technologies to do this,” said Steve Hayes, president of Parker Aerospace.
Another $500 million or so is being distributed to other local companies that have their fingers in the F-22 pie.
In all, there will be 339 F-22s built, with Lockheed churning out up to 36 a year for the next decade. The first plane is expected to roll off the assembly line late this year or in the first quarter of next year. The 339th plane is scheduled to fly in 2013.
Besides Parker Aerospace, Lockheed is tapping Certified Fabricators Inc. in Buena Park for $181 million worth of parts for the program. West Paterson, N.J.-based Cytec Industries Inc.’s Cytec Fiberite unit in Anaheim has a $140 million contract for composites.
Other OC companies in the loop are: Flexible Metal Hose MFG Co. in Costa Mesa, which has a $57 million contract; Irvine’s Kaiser Electroprecision, which has $20 million in work; and Arrowhead Products of Los Alamitos, which won a $14 million contract.
While work on the F-22 is being spread around, it’s not being sliced as thinly as in the heyday of military spending, according to Greg Caires, a Lockheed Martin spokesman.
“Since the end of the Cold War, and just prior to the Gulf War, the defense industry had a massive consolidation,” Caires said. “There used to be dozens and dozens of tier-one suppliers, now there are a few.”
Still, Caires said, consolidation hasn’t been a bad thing.
“There are fewer, but they are much more capable because the byproduct of consolidation is synergy,” he said.
Parker Aerospace, a unit of Cleveland-based Parker Hannifin Corp., makes thousands of aircraft parts, from pneumatic valves to coolant filters. The unit is headquartered in Irvine and has operations in nine states, not including numerous customer service operations.
In OC, Parker Aerospace employs about 1,700 people, putting it at No. 41 on the Business Journal’s 2000 list of county employers.
The Air Force has six F-22s undergoing flight testing at Edwards Air Force Base in San Bernardino County. Later this year, one of the plans is set to be shot with a cannon to see if the plane can sustain a direct hit.
The Defense Department could end up ordering more F-22s, thus bumping up the budget, Lockheed’s Caires said.
Most of the Air Force’s fighter planes were designed and built in the 1970s with what is now ancient technology, according to Parker Aerospace’s Hayes.
“It is like driving a 1970s car,” he said.
The F-22 was designed to replace the F-15, which was designed and built in the 1970s. The F-22 project dates back to 1985. The Defense Department enlisted all of its major suppliers to come up with an aircraft with stealth technology, efficient yet powerful engines, on-board computers that could process loads of data and the agility to outmaneuver any other plane.
At that time, those characteristics were found in separate planes but not a single aircraft.
“People came out of that meeting shaking their heads. (But) five years later they had prototypes,” Caires said.
In 1991, the first F-22 prototype was flown for the Pentagon, with Lockheed Martin beating out other contractors for the lead role in developing the fighter. Each F-22 is expected to cost $83 million.
Pratt & Whitney developed an engine for the F-22 that allows it to achieve high speeds without the use of fuel-guzzling afterburners. The aircraft also has aeronautics that enable it to fly faster and higher than other combat fighters.
Caires said some Russian aerospace manufacturers are trying to build an aircraft with similar features as the F-22. But Russia doesn’t keep the planes for its own military purposes. The country’s distraught economy has caused the manufacturers to seek foreign buyers for the proposed aircraft. n
