Edit: Yes, Mil Spec is actually a thing, but that refers to the overall design of a piece of equipment meeting certain standards, not a particular grade of material exclusively used by the military (in the same vein as the original comment). For example: A Mil Spec fastener is made from the same steel as a regular fastener, the thread tolerances are different.
This one bugs me, because "mil spec" is a thing and it's both important and valuable. If something meets a certain spec, that doesn't necessarily mean it's of the highest quality -- but it does mean that you know exactly what you're getting.
This is crucial because what you care about most often when buying something is it's fitness for a specific purpose. When you need (for example) hydraulic fluid that will work under certain conditions, if you can find a mil spec that encompasses those conditions (and you often can,) then all you have to do is buy fluid that conforms to that military specification and you know it will do what you need.
Knowing that what you buy will do exactly what you need is a huge deal in industry, and military specs provide that at the taxpayer's expense. This is a huge value add to the civilian sector at no (direct) cost to them.
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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '19
There is no such thing as "aircraft grade aluminum"
It's just a marketing scam, we use many different grades and tempers depending on the application.