The Royal Flying Corps was the first foreign air service to receive the SPAD S.VII. Only two squadrons used it on the western front, the 19th and 23rd squadrons. However, the flying schools in the UK and the 30th squadron, serving in Mesopotamia (nowadays Iraq), used it. Generally the British-built SPAD were used for training purposes and in Mesopotamian front due to their inferior quality and the French built ones were used in the Western Front. In the western front it was eventually replaced by the Sopwith Dolphin during the early months of 1918.
It is interesting to point out that many sub-variants were made by the British out of this airplane. Initially, the inclusion of two lewis machine-guns above the upper wings (a common feature shared with other British airplanes) was intended to compensate somehow the lack of firepower of the S.VII as it had only one MG, however this method proved to be clumsy against another airplanes but very effective for ground attack missions performing straffing attacks, so we could say that maybe it was one of the earliest multi-role fighters in history.
Another interesting field modification was the one depicted as 'tropicalized'. Taking some parts of an already obsolete SPAD A.2, they made an improved version of an S.VII ready to serve better under desertical enviroments. By cutting the exhaust tubes down, the sand couldn't enter in big quantities into the radiator, the engine could cool down faster, by replacing the standard windshield with a more enclosed metalized one, much less sand was blown into pilots face when flying and by re-enforcing with metal some parts on the vertical stabilizer, the ailerons worked better in a desertical environment.
We shouldn't forget that, years later, during the Second World War, to have tropicalized versions of any fighter (Bf.109 or Spitfire) was a very common feature in almost every army involved in the conflict.
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