Burt Rutan has a lot of experience working with composites. His original VariEze prototype (N7EZ) flew in 1975 and was all composite. Over the years, Rutan has designed over 300 planes and actually built a few dozen of them. Virtually all except his early 1970s VariViggen (built of wood) were built of composites. He has learned a lot over the years.

Over the years, he has taken on many interesting projects. Among them, he designed and built the wings for the Pegasus air-launched space booster. If memory serves, the first stage of the Pegasus (the one with wings) reaches a speed of about Mach 8. Clearly, Burt has learned how to handle some pretty high temperatures, at least for a period of a few minutes.