RE: RP and Defence Industry

From: Brock Hinzmann (bhinzmann@sric.sri.com)
Date: Thu Oct 19 2000 - 01:34:01 EEST


Dear Antonios,

The curt answers to your question are due to the fact that, yes, of
course many applications of RP exist in the military and defence industry, for
many of the same reasons as in other industries, only more so. Many of the
earliest applications of RP were in defence and I recall various examples
from Texas Instruments, Lockheed, Boeing, and others. New missiles and
aircraft can be scaled down in size for meetings and, just as important,
appropriations presentations. Scaling up in size can be important for
explaining to a politician how something works. When you are dealing with new
technologies, as is often the case in military applications, one-of-a-kind
test models can be built cheaply for wind tunnel, accoustical, radar, and
other kinds of testing. Things have to work even better in the military than
in commercial applications. In the military, there is first place... and
there is dead.

One of my favorite stories, however, was of the negative side; what
happened to a defence contractor that didn't use RP. That particular company
had spent thousands of man-hours building a model of a new military vehicle
out of a mix of wood, metal, plastic, and canvas, which was glued together
and painted. The model for this top-secret project looked so bad that
someone accidently threw it out with the trash, where it was picked up by
some dumpster diver, who tried to sell it to an alert model shop owner, who
then began contacting the local defence contractors to see who had lost
their model. Even in the military, it really helps to make models, let alone
working protptypes, that look good.

Brock Hinzmann

Antonios Vavouliotis wrote:
>Dear List,
> I wonder if the techniques of RP have any application in the defence
>industry?
> Regards,
>Antonios Vavouliotis
>Research Assistant
>University of Patras
>
>From: Antonios Vavouliotis <vavoul@lms.mech.upatras.gr>

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