Reprinted by Permission of SignOn San Diego

Jaycor* puts lid on bomb blasts

FAA to offer S.D. firm's boxes to airlines for tests

August 1, 1996

Bombs may soon be obsolete weapons in the terrorist's repertoire for bringing down big jetliners.

Cargo containers developed by San Diego-based Jaycor purportedly have proven resistant to the ravages of a small bomb, similar to the explosive that ripped apart Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland in 1988.

The high-strength composite fiber boxes -- which company officials say are made of material stronger than that used in bulletproof vests -- are about to be offered by the Federal Aviation Administration to the major airlines for testing. Jaycor hasn't yet determined a sales price for when the company begins marketing the containers to airlines.

"Bomb detectors will find the big ones, and our containers will take care of the smaller ones," said James Stuhmiller, Jaycor senior vice president. "Detection alone is an inefficient way to find small bombs."

Calls placed to the FAA in Washington, D.C., yesterday were not immediately returned.

An explosion inside a Jaycor container aboard a 747 would hardly go unnoticed by passengers and crew, Stuhmiller acknowledged.

"They would hear a noise," he said, and possibly feel a brief moment of turbulence.

Stuhmiller stood in Jaycor's back lot on Towne Center Drive yesterday morning next to a test model that had endured a series of internal explosions.

Yet the box's white shell -- with the black Jaycor logo stripped across its side -- seemed only slightly frayed.

The so-called "hardened unit load device" -- which measures 5 feet, 4 inches across and deep, and weighs about 280 pounds -- is designed to hold passengers' luggage in the belly of the plane. A wide-bodied airliner could accommodate up to 32 of the rugged boxes.

Just how powerful a bomb it would take to rip through a box is classified government information, Stuhmiller said. A huge cache of powerful explosives in a suitcase likely would demolish not only the container, but also disable the plane, he said.

Jaycor developed the bomb-resistant boxes during a 3-1/2-year project funded with $1 million from the FAA.

"The first container weighed 600 pounds," Stuhmiller said.

Subsequent models were built progressively lighter, to the point that the finished version is comparable in weight to the aluminum cargo containers now in use on most airliners.

Jaycor has competitors that also are attempting to provide practical solutions to bomb attacks.

SRI in Menlo Park, Calif., for example, is developing blast-resistant blankets that can be tied over luggage.

Jaycor is the only firm that has been contracted by the government to design small-bomb-proof cargo holds.

Jaycor holds a number of design patents on the boxes, said Stuhmiller, noting that the company plans to license its container technology to other manufacturing firms.

"The composite material used to build the containers is very expensive right now," he said. "But . . . we expect it will soon get much cheaper to make a lot of them."

Jaycor employs 100 workers in San Diego, and 450 workers elsewhere. A privately held company, it specializes in telecommunications engineering, defense sciences and information-systems engineering for both private and government clients.