The Hunt for Red October (film) essentially revealed the use of gravimetry as a method of silent navigation in US submarines. Thought to be a billion dollar black project, the development of a full-tensor gravity gradiometer by Bell Aerospace was a classified technology at the time. It was thought to be deployed on only a few s after it was first developed in 1973. Bell Aerospace later sold the technology to Bell Geospace for oil exploration purposes. The last Typhoon-class submarine was officially laid down in 1986, under the name "TK-210", but according to sources was never finished and scrapped in 1990. The musical score of
The Hunt for Red October Reagan had pronounced the book, which was given to him as a Christmas gift, as “the perfect yarn” and “unputdownable”; his endorsement eventually boosted the novel's sales and solidified Clancy's reputation as a bestselling author. Regarding the reception, Clancy remarked: “I was thunderstruck, dumbfounded, bowled over, amazed. But I wasn't surprised." In addition, the novel was a big hit in the White House. "The Hunt for Red October" was also popular among the military. On a 1985 visit to the , Clancy discovered 26 copies of the novel among the crew. "The Washington Post", in its original review, praised the