Douglas aircraft at the Long Beach, CA plant

[GON]

Beautiful DC10, DC 8, and DC 9 at the Long Beach, CA plant.

Guessing the plant later converted to C17 production. And I believe C17 production has ended. And guessing Long Beach, CA is no longer manufacturing aircraft. But not verified.

 

[Just a civilian pilot]

Beutiful DC10, DC 8, and DC 9 at the Long Beach, CA plant.

Guessing the plant later converted to C17 production. And I believe C17 production has ended. And guessing Long Beach, CA is no longer manufacturing aircraft. But not verified.

View attachment 147738

Love the black nose on the Air Canada DC 9.

 

[Flashlightboy]

Boeing production at Long Beach stopped a few years ago when the last C17 departed for Qatar. The tooling was destroyed and the buildings and land have been either sold or are being sold. Lots of hangars there to dispose of.

The airport still has a Gulfstream facility but Boeing's time in Long Beach is long gone.

 

[c502cid]

You are missing the best part about that plant!

The workbenches in my garage are both from Douglas Aircraft. Heavy duty buggers. They are labeled Douglas Aircraft Santa Monica but I bought them at a Long Beach plant garage sale in the late 70's.

 

[CKN]

Knew someone who Grandpa worked at McDouglas (Long Beach) during World War ll, Said the planes came off the assembly line-moved out to the runway and the flaps were checked for operation, and then the plane would take off and sent to the war theater. That was the extent of the tests.

 

[Number_35]

Coincidentally enough, I spotted this DC-10 model on a garage yesterday.

 

[Cujet]

The airport still has a Gulfstream facility but Boeing's time in Long Beach is long gone.

Gulfstream has also moved out of Long Beach, CA. Difficulty with employee work ethic was a factor.

 

[Joel_MD]

I lived in Southern California for about five years when I was active duty USAF, from 1996-2001. I remember seeing the C-17s taking off for test and ferry flights.

The Clinton administration really slow-rolled the production of that aircraft. It took 24 years to build less than 300 aircraft! The Air Force should have built built 200+ more of them. It's going to be a long time before there's a new cargo aircraft, and the C-17s have a lot of hours on them from 20 years of Afghan and Iraqi operations.

 

[y_p_w]

Boeing still has office jobs in LB. But they sold off the manufacturing site.

Real Estate And Development - Long Beach Business Journal

Australia-Based Developer Closes Escrow On Former C-17 Site The former 1.1-million-square-foot manufacturing facility for the Boeing C-17 aircraft and surrounding land have been sold to Australia-based developer Goodman Group for future development, Boeing confirmed with the Business Journal...

lbbusinessjournal.com

 

[Exhaustgases]

At one time Douglas was the best aircraft manufacture in the world.
Before the jet age.
There are still many of their old planes making money for their owners.

 

[Randol]

Sadly I think it's all gone now. I was there in 2002 for the B717 program, mostly bolting together sub-assys, C-17s were being built across the runway. There were a lot of empty buildings then, and weeds growing up through cracks in the concrete. In the main engineering building there were actually escalators between the floors. It was mostly dark and empty except for the B717 guys. The last I looked on google maps many buildings have been razed. What used to be an industial power house is now gone. Very Sad!

 

[Exhaustgases]

I guess that is how to get rid of your competition.

 

[Malo83]

Douglas built the A3 SkyWarrior there, this was my first squadron when I joined the NAVY ( VQ-1) great airplane to work on, with the clam shell doors on the engines you can get to any component on the J57-P10.