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AeroFranz said:
Labor is just one of the considerations. California has traditionally paid higher wages, but until the last 30 years or so, the benefits of being in Calif., especially the southern area, outweighed that. The ever-changing regulatory and tax climate are what are driving things away. To cite but one example, Towards the later part of the DC-10/MD-11 run, California regulations became so onerous it was actually cheaper for MDD to build the planes to an airworthy condition, then fly them out of state to be painted and then fly them back to be finished than it was to simply paint them within the State. When Boeing was considering setting up the 777 production line out of the Puget Sound area, a number of States put in proposals to get it there (it ended up in the Sound area). California's attempt didn't even place in the also-rans, and of course no one even thought about Calif. for the 787.
There is still some ongoing work, but it's not on the scale we're talking about here, such as an F-23 line. The C-17 is still there because with the trickle of orders coming in, it would be financial suicide to try and move the line. However, if in some alternate universe USAF or export customers came in and said, "We want another 200 C-17s", I'd bet money Boeing would move the line. In the case of Northrop, the F/A-18 sections are built there because they've been built there, and the higher costs are passed on to the taxpayers. B-1 and B-2 maintenance, same thing. Global Hawk was started there and is relatively small. The stuff's already there. But large scale (Global Hawk isn't very big) new production? A bidder for such would have a tough time competing with the much lower overhead and regulatory costs that a bidder planning to do manufacturing elsewhere would enjoy.
It may be that there are some still some design teams in Calif., but that's more a matter of design facilities being in place and the benefits of modern transportation and communication. Design teams now can be anywhere. Same thing for research, although I fear that may change. I can't see any reason why, if there was a large NGB production run any company would want to take on the grief of trying to comply with the onerous and fluid State and local regulations. Of course, aviation isn't the only manufacturing industry in this boat. Count up the number of non-taxpayer subsidized automobile plants left in California. Here, I'll make it easy for you, I'll list them.
The head of one of Aerojet's major facilities said to me back in 1990 that he would never do another manufacturing program in California. Not because of labor costs. And it wasn't just the onerous regulations they had to deal with. he pointed out that the environmental restrictions in, say, Nevada were just as tough. The thing was that once you complied with them, you could move on. In California, you'd do everything, get your clearance, and then they'd change the rules and you had to start over. Local entities would come up with new rules that put you in conflict with State of Federal rules, which then put you out of compliance with the other rules. Then, they'd change them and meanwhile the State would change its. It became just too expensive in money and resources to start something new unless the State was going to write you a blank check (California High Speed Rail is an example of that, but that's for another topic).
Sad, because I remember when not so long ago (or maybe long ago if you're under 30) it was so different.
