Ka-boom

Ka-boom

Technology Innovation Awards - lee/collier Runner-up by Jean Gruss | Editor/Lee-Collier

Fake grenades for real training could mean explosive business for Non Lethal Training Munitions.

When Andrew Van Der Plaats pulls the pin on his hand grenade, only the two cats in his office seem to scare easily.

Fortunately for him and his neighbors, he's not detonating a real hand grenade. The former Porsche mechanic has developed a grenade with which police officers and soldiers can use to train. It's one of a few on the market that does this without pyrotechnics, relying instead on a loud bang to simulate an explosion.

His North Fort Myers-based company, Non Lethal Training Munitions, developed the first non-pyrotechnic grenade to look and sound like the real thing. A patent is pending.

The idea for a training grenade evolved from Van Der Plaats' paintball hobby, which he started to play in the early 1980s. The sport is a game of combat in which participants try to capture the flag of an opposite team. All participants are armed with guns that shoot small balls of paint that explode harmlessly on impact.

"The first game I played I became hooked," he recalls.

As the game grew in popularity, Van Der Plaats wrote about it for paintball magazines. Eventually, military officers became intrigued by the possibility of staging mock battles to test the troops.

Van Der Plaats volunteered to organize friends and other civilians to play against soldiers. Meanwhile, paintball manufacturers called on Van Der Plaats to help them market their products to the military for training purposes.

After nearly two decades of developing contacts with officers at military bases and police-training centers, Van Der Plaats had established himself as a consultant for various vendors of combat-training equipment.

That's when he discovered that a non-pyrotechnic hand grenade was a missing ingredient in the vast training arsenal. He enlisted the help of Bernie Deak, a Cleveland-based paintball-products manufacturer, to help him design and manufacture the hand grenade that's called the Thumper TG6 Training Grenade.

The advantage of a non-pyrotechnic hand grenade is that it is a cheaper alternative because it can be reused, whereas one that uses pyrotechnics wears out after a certain number of uses. In addition, because it only simulates the sound of a grenade using a gas cartridge, the Thumper can be used anywhere and Van Der Plaats can ship it by UPS without restrictions. The grenade, which measures about six inches long and weighs one pound, costs $104 and a gas cartridge costs $4.95.

The grenade is versatile too. A bracket to attach it to a wall and an easy-to-pull clip turns it into a trip-wire booby trap.

Surprisingly, the development of the grenade took only about $5,000 in investment. "It's all been done on a shoestring," Van Der Plaats says. "You learn to be frugal when you don't have an angel investor."

He estimates the company will break even once it has sold 1,000 grenades. "It's more a question of time than money," he says.

To promote the product, Van Der Plaats says he's posted a video of a SWAT team using his product on YouTube, the hugely popular Internet video site. "People respond to it," he says.

Meanwhile, he's waiting for a positive review in SWAT magazine, a police magazine that reviews training devices. That kind of publicity could lead to a surge in sales. So far, Van Der Plaats has sold 75 grenades.

Another source of leads are law-enforcement trade shows, though the cost of traveling can be prohibitive. "One trip to California can cost 90 grenades," he says.

Instead, Van Der Plaats says he's agreed to pay a salesman in California a commission on any sales he makes. Typically, Van Der Plaats says he'll agree to pay a 20% commission.