Page 2 - Aerotech News and Review, December 17, 2021

AVC’s Skyrocket to be restored
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Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket on display at Antelope Valley College.
Courtesy photograph
Douglas Aircraft Company built the Skyrocket for the Navy, which flew but never owned the aircraft. That loophole avoided the process by which retired or decommissioned aircraft were put on loan to selected government offices and installations for specific durations. Loan agree- ments were subject to annual audits. For reasons that remain unclear, that didn’t happen with the Skyrocket. Both the museum officials and col- lege trustees are confident their files contain documented evidence of the legitimacy of their claims on the Skyrocket. But for the moment, neither has been able to locate the documents.
In the meantime, the two parties are facing more immediate challenges which some see as impetus to collaborate on paying the expected high costs of restoring an aerospace museum piece. Even the price for something as basic as resurfacing and painting an airframe can easily start at $50,000. Another consideration is the level of difficulty in restoration of an aircraft with wings of aluminum skin and a fuselage constructed of weather-sensitive magnesium. The job involves a level of sophistication that goes beyond cosmetics at a price.
The museum, with 82 aircraft already in its inventory, can only raise and spend money for restoration of aircraft in their possession, and AV College faces financing limitations of its own. Another factor in favor of a compromise is the number of volunteers working in both camps, including notable individuals such as AVC science professor Dr. Les Uhazy, Ph.D, who also serves as first vice chairman of the FTHF Executive Board.
“As I understand it, all of the documents linked to the Douglas Skyrocket are now in the AVC Library,” Uhazy said.
“The President’s Office is now challenged with having the aircraft removed from its cur- rent location, restored, and then relocated on the campus,” he continued. “This valuable national treasure plus the documents, have to be pre- served. As much as the original gift of the Sky- rocket to AVC was in the name of the children of the Antelope Valley, I believe these pieces of aeronautical history should be preserved in the Flight Test Museum at Edwards and part of the museum’s STEM Educational Mission for the Antelope Valley, state and nation.”
The only three D-558-II Skyrockets built re- main on display. Aircraft Number NACA 145 is at Antelope Valley College in Lancaster. NACA 143 is at the Planes of Fame Museum in Ontario, Calif. The second Skyrocket to be built, and the most fa- mous, NACA 144, is in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
by Larry Grooms
special to Aerotech News
LANCASTER, Calif.—Today’s official news is, there is no truth to watercooler rumors that the legendary Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket was mysteriously and surreptitiously removed from its pedestal at a construction site at Antelope Valley College.
The rest of the story is that the rare and his- torically prized aircraft will be taken down within two to four months, potentially reignit- ing a decades old custody disagreement between competing guardians of aerospace history.
Diane Knippel, head of the AV College Gift Foundation and former career aerospace execu- tive for Lockheed Martin, cleared up any con- fusion over the status and whereabouts of the sleek, swept-wing and needle-nosed black and white rocket plane. She said she took a walk around campus the morning of Dec. 7, and there it was, still pointed skyward on the pole.
Addressing questions from Aerotech News about the Skyrocket’s immediate future, Knippel said the aircraft will be transported to Palmdale’s Joseph P. Davies Memorial Airpark restoration hangar. She said when the work is completed, the current direction of the College Governing Board is to return the D-558-II to a new outdoor pedestal on the corner of the cam- pus at Avenue K and 30th Street West.
And it is exposure to weather, vandalism and busy traffic, and the matter of pride in honoring a college donor family’s bequest that continue to divide two organizations, each believing it has the right location of the Skyrocket.
Representatives of the private, non-profit Air Force Flight Test Historical Foundation Museum, under construction along Rosamond Boulevard just outside the main gate to Edwards Air Force Base, contend that displaying the Skyrocket, one of only three ever built, should rationally be protected, preserved and appreci- ated by thousands more people in the indoor, climate-controlled museum.
Art Thompson, Executive Board President of the FTHF, said, “We don’t want to be an ad- versary to those at Antelope Valley College. I’ll support AVC in any way possible. Even if they refuse our proposal to offer a better home for a world of tens of thousands of visitors.
Director of Education and Community Re- lations for the Flight Test Historical Museum Lisa Brown said, “Our relationship with Ante- lope Valley College is important and valuable to our STEM education efforts. We understand the significance of the aircraft to the college and support its preservation and display. The college
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is doing the right thing in going forward with the restoration.”
Retired AVC publicist Steve Standerfer notes this is not the first round in the duel over ap- proaches to preservation. He recalls a first museum run on the Skyrocket during former AVC President Al Kurki’s administration in the 1990s. Quotable Kurki was succinct: “It’s going to stay here.” That was the end of discussion.
Current governing board member Steve Buf- falo said in a telephone interview that represen- tatives of the Historical Foundation talked with College President Ed Knudsen and approached the board two or three years ago to make a pitch for moving the Skyrocket to the new museum. Buffalo said the board took no action. Knudson could not be reached for comment.
Buffalo said the primary argument for keep- ing the aircraft on the AVC campus is to honor a pledge the college made in perpetuity to the family of the late Alden Carter, manager of Flight Test for Douglas Aircraft Company, who donated the Skyrocket even before it was in- stalled and dedicated on the new AVC westside campus in 1963. Buffalo provided a photo of the aircraft on the college annex campus in 1960. He acknowledges that the Skyrocket’s original campus center prominence was a point of pride lost in the modernization. One critic called the former aerospace shrine, “a great piece of inspi- rational lawn art.”
One of the roadblocks to resolution of the years-long stalemate is the fact that individuals who made agreements decades ago have passed on. The late Edwards Museum Director Doug Nelson had a deal with college, but records of the agreement are missing. Paper trails come up empty.
Unlike most military and government air- craft bound for public display, then and since,
Douglas D-558-II Skyrockets
Aircraft Number 145
On display at Antelope Valley College, Lancaster, Calif.
Aircraft Number 143
On display at the Planes of Fame Mu- seum
Aircraft Number 144
On display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
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December 17, 2021
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