The retirement also serves as a reminder of the decline of the aerospace industry in Southern California. The plane was built in the 1980s when Lockheed's Burbank plant employed more than 17,000 workers. The Burbank plant closed in 1994 and Lockheed now employs about 4,000 engineers in Palmdale.
Although a number of companies in the region still make aircraft parts and develop advanced weapon systems, large-scale manufacturing has mostly disappeared. The C-17 military cargo plane plant in Long Beach and the F-18 fuselage factory in El Segundo are about all that remain.
"It does show how dramatically the industry has changed in Southern California," said Jack Kyser, chief economist with the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.
The F-117 retirement ceremony is likely to be a somber event mostly attended by retirees who can finally talk about the aircraft -- if only to a certain extent.
"I would rather not get into it. I'm not sure if that is still classified," said Sherman N. Mullin, the former president of Lockheed's Skunk Works who led the F-117 program in the 1980s, when asked how the plane was transported from Burbank to its test flights in Nevada.
He declined to confirm news reports at the time that massive C-5 Galaxy military cargo planes were used to "deliver or pick up secret cargo" -- the stealth -- in the dead of night. The speculation arose after residents complained about aircraft noise from Burbank airport late at night, according to a 1984 Times article. The plane was assembled in a hangar next to the airport.
During its development, the F-117 flew only at night to avoid prying eyes and Soviet spy satellites, thus its name Night Hawk.
The project was so secretive that Mullin couldn't even tell his wife what he did.
"She didn't know for 10 years," Mullin said, adding that every Friday, the entire complex was locked up for the weekend and no one was allowed to take work off-site. "I don't think she minded. She liked that I didn't bring home any work on the weekends."
Monday's telephone interview from his home in Oxnard was the first time Mullin had talked to a reporter about the F-117, more than a quarter-century after he led its development efforts.
Mullin said his fondest memory was a Friday afternoon in 1983 when the Air Force declared that the plane was ready for combat. But it would be four years before the government acknowledged its existence.
"It was an afternoon of great emotional satisfaction for me," Mullin said. "But we didn't celebrate. We didn't do a damn thing. We just locked up the place and went home."
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peter.pae@latimes.com
