Re: Oh, yeah.
yeah, and then the rod expands and the sleeve thats made to slide freely on it doesn't expand as much so it seizes solid. Not really a good idea. Simply going for good tolerances and some low temp grease would work fine. (And using thermal coefficients the tolerances at altitude can be calculated rather easily)
I agree with the other commentards about just using a launch rail, not a rod. If you ARE hellbent on using a rod, go for a high grade steel, not titanium, which is complete overkill in this situation. On the short bit of rod used for LOHAN the gained strength is not really going to matter much, and the 40% weight saves is going to make little difference, if any. Titanium is a bitch to work/shape. It requires very sharp tools, high cutting speeds and lots of cooling. Get any of these wrong and you just ruin the material you are working on.
Then a simple contruction remark: Keep in mind that the same properties that make teflon nice and slippery also make mean nothing sticks to it, including glue. Any teflon parts will have to be screwed or locked in place by other means
Final remark, I would move the teflon sliding strips on the truss closer to LOHAN (or LOHAN closer to the strips). The shorter this distance is, the less momentum she can build up that would then need to be absorbed at impact. Yes, this could mean that the wings contact the strips more often, but that shouldn't really be a problem. If the swing is fast enough this could mean a lot of excess momentum that needs to be absorbed by the (probably) tiny flex of the wings skin. There is no other buffer.