Countywide : Weapons on Exhibit at El Toro Air Base

As he eyed with reverence the green camouflage-covered computers and models of high-powered rockets on display Thursday, Lonn Baker couldn’t help but feel like a child on a diet in a candy store.

“This stuff is incredible. It’s amazing what they can do with technology,” said the 61-year-old ex-Marine from Huntington Beach. “I don’t know if our country can afford all this stuff with our deficit. . . . But it is sure something to look at.”

Hundreds of people, most of them Marines, joined Baker in viewing the latest military weapons and technology on the first day of Marine West, an annual defense equipment exhibition that runs through today at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. It is free to the public.

More than 50 of the nation’s largest defense firms were out in force at Marine West. But with the Cold War over and the military budget shrinking, visitors and company representatives said the show has taken on a slightly restrained atmosphere.

The defense build-up of the 1980s is now just a memory, prompting some firms to place a premium on versatility and economy.

Several of the most sophisticated pieces of equipment discussed at the expo have civilian as well as military uses.

At the Grumman Aircraft Systems booth, a popular item was a model of a modified C-130 aircraft that is capable of having an office full of computers and other equipment swiftly loaded onto it.

The aircraft could be used as part of an airborne command and control center during a Marine invasion. But company representatives said the plane might also benefit the Federal Aviation Administration for use in air-traffic communications.

“We are looking into more multi-use systems,” said Robert Selkowitz, Grumman’s manager for advanced surveillance applications. “I think certainly that for the defense industry, things are different today than they were a few years ago. Those companies that don’t change with the times don’t change at all.”

Added his partner, Doug Heard: “If you don’t change, like a dinosaur you have to die.”

Another example of defense equipment with possible civilian use is the Cypher, an airborne device that resembles a tire inner-tube.

The unmanned Cypher can be equipped with sensitive video equipment and programmed to fly into dangerous areas to transmit video images.

The unusual contraption can deliver crucial intelligence. But it might also be of use to utility companies for examining broken power lines that are out of reach.

“This can be used whenever you need to prevent men from going out into a dangerous area,” said Vince Balderrama of Sikorsky Aircraft, the Cypher’s manufacturer.

Aerospace representatives said their companies are also at work developing post-Cold War military equipment that can be used on a variety of different missions.

It wasn’t just the high-tech weapons that attracted visitors.

General Dynamics showed pictures of its latest amphibious vehicle, appropriately named Beachhead 2000.

The vehicle, which looks like a tank, includes machine guns, a large cannon and an imposing front panel that resembles a giant shovel.

“I wouldn’t want to be in front of that baby,” Baker said with admiration.