SPAD S.XIII

The SPAD S.XIII is a French biplane fighter aircraft built by the Societe Pour L'Aviation et ses Derives and introduced into French air service in 1917 during the First World War, developed as an improved version of the earlier SPAD S.VII with a more powerful engine and twin synchronized machine guns firing through the propeller arc. Prized for its sturdy construction and its ability to dive at high speed without structural failure, a quality less robust rival designs of the period often lacked, the S.XIII was flown extensively by French, American, Italian and other Allied air units and became the mount of many of the war's leading fighter pilots, including the top-scoring American ace of the war, Eddie Rickenbacker. Manufactured in the thousands before the war's end, the SPAD S.XIII is remembered as one of the most successful and widely used Allied fighter aircraft of the First World War.