Pitching ideas to military can be a hard sell

<p>Troop-carrying all-terrain vehicles that float from the sky. Mortar shells packed with spy cameras. Both are inventions from the private sector intended for military use.</p><p>But sometimes such ideas can be a hard sell.</p><p>Ted Strong, a Florida businessman and former paratrooper, has been pitching his parachute-trussed ATV to the Army for five years. The idea is to enable soldiers to hit the battlefield seated in the vehicle with the motor running, giving them instant mobility.</p><p>"They haven't realized they need a man-in-a-vehicle capability," said Strong, who tested the invention at an airport near this western Ohio city. "It's a really good, valid concept, but it doesn't mean it's going to sell."</p><p>Selling ideas to the military is daunting for many individuals and small businesses, said defense analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, a private think tank in Arlington, Va.</p><p>"The military spends over a billion dollars a day, and it's not accustomed to thinking in small scale about anything," Thompson said. "And the Defense Department is wrapped in a complex web of procurement regulations that are both arcane and very time-consuming, which is definitely a disincentive to a small-business man."</p><p>Scott Crosson, associate director for small business for the Army Materiel Command based at Fort Belvoir, Va., said the Army encourages small businesses to submit their ideas.</p><p>New ideas have to increase the effectiveness of existing weapons and equipment, improve safety or reduce costs, he said. The Army also takes into account how easily the item can be transported and distributed and if it can withstand battlefield conditions.</p><p>"The government has to have a valid need," Crosson said. "What may appear to be a good idea to the individual or the company, the government may not share that same thought."</p><p>There have been successes. Individuals and small businesses have developed gyroscopes that help stabilize military helicopters, brushes that extend the life of Army tank barrels, tool kits to dispose of explosives, and parts for night vision goggles.</p><p>The Army Materiel Command awarded nearly $4.4 billion to small businesses in fiscal 2003 to develop inventions, up from $3.2 billion in 2002 and $2.8 billion in 2001. More than $4 billion was earmarked through the end of July.</p><p>Charles Stancil, a senior research engineer at the Georgia Tech Research Institute, got the idea for the aerial camera when he was flying helicopters during the Vietnam War. He realized soldiers on the ground needed to have his bird's-eye view of the enemy.</p><p>The camera is packed into a mortar shell with a small parachute. The shell is fired into the air, and the camera pops out. As it descends it takes pictures and transmits them to laptop computers in the hands of the soldiers on the ground.</p><p>The Georgia Tech Research Institute won a $1.7 million grant from the Navy to develop the camera for the Marines. However, the Navy later decided to go in a different direction.</p><p>"This is one that just didn't work out," said Paul Gido, assistant vice chief of naval research at the Office of Naval Research.</p><p>Gido said the Navy developed a robotic aerial vehicle with a miniaturized camera that better serves the needs of soldiers in the battlefield. He said the drone has greater range, can stay in the air longer and provides real-time video to soldiers.</p><p>Stancil believes his camera is more precise, gets photos to the soldiers quicker and is less expensive at $700 to $1,000 apiece. He thinks there is room for both devices.</p><p>The Army said Strong's parachute invention appears to be technically sound, although risks to soldiers and its reliability have yet to be evaluated.</p><p>Strong, 68 and owner of Orlando, Fla.-based Strong Enterprises, said his ATV invention failed in only one of about 150 tests, when the vehicle parachute failed to open and the driver had to jump out and use his own chute.</p><p>His idea is to roll ATVs out of a plane's rear cargo door, then deploy heavy-duty parachutes that the driver controls with the wheel. The parachute is cut loose when the vehicle hits the ground.</p><p>The custom-built vehicles cost between $80,000 and $100,000 apiece.</p><p>Ivan Oelrich, director of strategic security programs for the Federation of American Scientists, said both ideas are good ones because they address different problems.</p><p>"But it has to be more than a clever idea," he said.</p><p>Parachuting soldiers in ATVs would save the time it takes to unload the vehicles from pallets after they are air-dropped, Oelrich said. But a soldier-filled vehicle being dropped from the air might be a bigger target.</p><p>Oelrich said Stancil's idea sounds as if it could give good aerial photos. However, the trend in the military is to use small robot drones, which can provide photos over a larger area of the battlefield and be sent to the most critical areas, he said.</p><p>Thompson said options for small-business men trying to sell their inventions to the military include teaming up with a large, well-connected supplier and hiring a Washington-based consultant or retired military officer who has a network inside the Pentagon. They also could visit one of a handful of offices the Pentagon has established to encourage ideas from small businesses.</p><p>"But you still have to be a borderline genius to find the office you have to go to," he said.</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x286335c)</p><p>HASH(0x286201c)</p><p>HASH(0x2862100)</p><p>HASH(0x28621e4)</p>

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