Defense contract firm pursues CUP renewal
LAKE LOS ANGELES — General Atomics, a privately held company that focuses on energy and defense contracts, has a diverse portfolio, including satellites to nuclear energy plants, fusion energy plants, electromagnetic propulsion and a medical diagnostic chemicals division.
The San Diego-based company is also one of the largest producers of aircraft deicing chemicals and technologies. The company’s largest division, Aeronautical Systems Inc., builds and tests remotely piloted aircraft, also known as RPAs. The aircraft are built in San Diego and then shipped to the company’s high desert facilities including one in Lake Los Angeles for testing and flight preparedness.
“These RPAs are commonly referred to in the movies as predator drones,” Ken Anderson, General Atomics facilities project manager, said during a Zoom presentation Tuesday night for the Lake Los Angeles Rural Town Council. “We used to call them drones a lot but now that everybody has a drone in their closet. … We no longer want to be classified as drones.”
General Atomics Aeronautical
has four facilities in the high desert — three in San Bernardino County and one in Los Angeles County at the privately owned 1,100-acre former Gray Butte Auxiliary Airfield, which served as a World War II training site. General Atomics purchased the airfield, at Avenue R-8 and 250th Street East, in April 2000. The company added a 5,000 lineal-foot runway in March 2002, and then extended it into San Bernardino County in 2014 by another 3,000 feet.
Anderson cautioned that the GA Café that pops up on a Google map search is a cafe for employees only. The facility has 24/7 security.
“Unless you have an escort you’re probably not going to get on to the facility,” Anderson said.
The facility supports flight operations for the Air Force and Marine Corps.
With the Gray Butte facility Conditional Use Permit coming up for renewal before the LA County Regional Planning Commission, company officials reached out to the Lake Los Angeles Rural Town Council since the facility falls within Lake Los Angeles’ sphere of influence.
“Every 10 years LA County requires us to revisit our current use of the property,” Anderson said. “This process can take several months depending upon what changes we have and what we project on the property.”
As part of the renewal process, the company must document all of the buildings it has, cite the square footage for each building and then clarify the uses within the building such as hangar space or office use. They must also account for changes in parking such a charging stations for electric vehicle and bicycle racks.
“Currently, we actually do not have any new building projects really projected over the next three years at Gray Butte, but we still need to renew our current Conditional Use Permit,” Anderson said.
According to Anderson, it has been reported that every second of every day there are more than 60 General Atomic airplanes flying somewhere in the world.
“And almost every single one of these planes have first flown in the high desert at one of our airfields,” Anderson said.
Anderson added they hope to have the Town Council’s support for the Conditional Use Permit renewal.
“This has been wonderful,” Town Council President Robin Nute said. “I’ve been here for 35 years and watched that place develop from afar. So many wild stories going on about it because it’s kind of secretive and you couldn’t go anywhere near it. So it’s to nice to know what’s going on over there.”