Beyond The Sprues
Modelling => Ideas & Inspiration => Aero-space => Topic started by: The Big Gimper on June 06, 2016, 08:16:03 PM
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Suntan was the code-name of a prototype reconnaissance aircraft program, with the goal of creating a much faster and higher-altitude successor to the U-2, enabled by the use of liquid hydrogen (LH2) as aircraft fuel. The program was cancelled in 1958.
Found this over at Secret Projects (http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php) while looking for other stuff.
(http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1835.0;attach=533005;image)
Note: not sure if the above image is available without you being logged in to SP.
(http://alternathistory.com/files/users/user6327/000_761.jpg)
http://youtu.be/RWDxxnl0lhw (http://youtu.be/RWDxxnl0lhw)
More CL-400 information here (http://xplanes.free.fr/suntan/cl400-1.html) and here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_CL-400_Suntan) and here (http://youroker.livejournal.com/21742.html?thread=48366). There is an image from our own CiTrus90 on the last link.
Source: SP, Josef Gatial and others
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Suntan lead to the formation of P&W's Florida R&D Center and while the engine for this aircraft never flew, the expertise developed with LH2 lead to the development of the RL10 engine that's been a workhorse in the space program. The A-12 program evolved out of this, too.
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That thing is... massive. And massively insane. And I love it. :-*
To put it in perspective, if one started whiffing this, you could start with a 1/48 Starfighter and put the cockpit from 1/144 one on that (since she's almost exactly three times as long) then take the engines from a 1/32 Blackbird (engines roughly 30 scale feet long and Blackbird's engines are about 20 feet). Of course nobody is going to chop up a 1/32 Blackbird even if one existed, so perhaps those are better scratchbuilt :P