Aircore and Sturdy-Birdy/Dura-Plane are well before Spads. I don't know the year, but I'm thinking early 90's. The spark that lit the fuse for Spads was when a coworker of ours told us that a Pepsi sign at Wal-Mart looked like what his AirCore 40 was made from. We made some calls, and found the stuff. Up to that point, we had no idea it was just sign board and extreamly cheap. We just combined the coro wing (Aircore) and the gutterpipe fuselage (DuraPlane) with a do-it-yourself attitude and that's what Spads are all about![8D] It's amazing when you begin to find out how much the materials in these "kits" really cost. I'll never forget the excitment when we realized that 3 or 4 airframes could be built from $20 worth of gutterpipe and coroplast...and nothing beats a plane built from free coroplast from the gas station dumpster