Northwest Aerospace News October | November Issue No. 5 | Page 42

G
eneral Plastics has been in Taco-
ma 75 years. It got its start producing
things like fire hose for the U.S. Forest
Service.
But during World War II, Boeing
approached the company to see if it
could produce urethane foam products
for aerospace use. It could, and that
started the company down its current
path, where more than 50 percent of its
revenues are derived from “things that
fly,” Johnson said.
General Plastic’s products are on most
commercial aircraft, a host of military
platforms – and some even flew into
space on the space shuttles.
“A lot of very niche things,” Johnson
said.
There are three primary business lines
for General Plastics: structural foam
pieces, foam for prototyping and
tooling, and molded foams for custom
applications.
Turns out all polyurethane foam is not
created equal. “It’s a very versatile
material,” Johnson said.
Stiffer types of foam can stand alone
in certain applications. It’s great for ra-
domes, for example, because the foam
hits a balance of being strong enough
to protect radars from the environ-
ment but is still light enough so that it
doesn’t block or scatter the electronic
signal.
Foam can also be used to make
structural components lighter. Inte-
rior walls, for example, often utilize
sandwich core foam that fills the space
between two layers of composite or
aluminum veneer. The foam gives
density and form to the structure, but
at a fraction of the weight.
42
NORTHWEST AEROSPACE NEWS