Cavity behind the RCC leading edge

"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
Chuck Stewart wrote:

On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 16:14:59 -0800, rschmitt23 wrote:

This issue has been raised several times during the past 6 months.
There is
a fairly large class of space-qualified materials that could be used to
protect the aluminum wing spar behind the RCC parts. They're called
ablators

They could replace the whole spar with a Carbon/Carbon part. Granted, I've
never heard of a major C/C structural part like a spar before but hey, this
*is* rocket science. At least then you wouldnt be adding parasitic weight.
Maybe it'd even be lighter.

The would mean a major rebuild of the wing though. Billions and billions of
$.

Patrick