a person could buy a set of plans and build their own aircraft at home. In 1955, Poberezny co-founded, with Robert D. Blacker, EAA's first youth outreach program, Project Schoolflight, which brought "homebuilding" into high school industrial arts classes throughout the US. Poberezny's Mechanix Illustrated articles gained worldwide acclaim and the concept of aircraft homebuilding took off. Technology and innovation Until the late 1950s, builders had mainly kept to wood-and-cloth and steel tube-and-cloth design. Without the regulatory restrictions faced by production aircraft manufacturers, homebuilders introduced innovative designs and construction techniques. Burt Rutan introduced the canard design to the homebuilding world and pioneered the use of composite construction. Metal construction in kitplanes was taken to a new level by Richard VanGrunsven in his RV series. As the sophistication of the kits improved, components such as autopilots and more advanced navigation instruments became common. Litigation during the 1970s and 1980s caused stagnation in the small aircraft market, forcing the surviving companies to retain older, proven designs. In recent years, the less restrictive regulations for homebuilts allowed a number of manufacturers to develop new and innovative designs; many can outperform certified production aircraft in their class. An example of high-end homebuilt design is Lancair, which has developed a number of high-performance kits. The most powerful is the Lancair Propjet, a four-place kit with cabin pressurization and a turboprop engine, cruising at and 370 knots (425 mph, 685 km/h). Although aircraft such as this are considered "home-built" for legal reasons, they are typically built in the factory with the assistance of the buyer. This allows the company which sells the kit to avoid the long and expensive process of certification, because they remain owner-built according to the regulations. One of the terms applied to this concept is commonly referred to as "The 51% Rule", which requires that builders perform the majority of the fabrication and assembly to be issued a Certificate of Airworthiness as an Amateur Built aircraft. A small number of jet kitplanes have been built since the 1970s, including the tiny Bede Aircraft BD-5J. Future trends Van's Aircraft and Aircraft Kit Industry Association (AKIA) President Dick VanGrunsven was asked about the future of the kit aircraft industry in a wide-ranging interview in KitPlanes magazine in December 2012: Building materials Homebuilt aircraft can be constructed out of any material that is light and strong enough for flight. Several common construction methods are detailed