The Lockheed CL-400 Suntan

Image:Suntan-aircraft.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's been nearly 25 years since the editor of Air International wrote that comment and so I was wondering if any photographs have surfaced of the two "almost completed" prototypes? I've had no luck googling and thought maybe some specialised publication revealing them had been released in the meantime.

36,000gals of fuel in a 48,000lb ZFW airplane. No wonder it was cancelled.

I was thinking the same thing Matt! They should have called it the Bic Lighter!

Graeme said:

Image:Suntan-aircraft.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's been nearly 25 years since the editor of Air International wrote that comment and so I was wondering if any photographs have surfaced of the two "almost completed" prototypes? I've had no luck googling and thought maybe some specialised publication revealing them had been released in the meantime.

Click to expand...

As far as I know, no; I've never seen an actual photograph of the CL-400, and I've read quite a bit about the CL-400's "successors", the A-11 A-12. I didn't even know that they'd managed to begin construction of a CL-400, let alone almost complete them. IIRC, the main problem with the "Suntan" was the hydrogen storage facilities; pound for pound, it produced more power than the then-standard military fuel, JP-4, but it would've required entirely new storage facilities worldwide for effective deployment of the a/c. Also, there was some concern about the range of the CL-400; even with 36,000 lbs. of liquid hydrogen on-board, the theoretical calculations indicated a range of only about 1,000-1,200 miles.