SPAD SA Series - Domestic Users

We finish with this unorthodox design covering it's domestic users and prototypes.

The SPAD SA was designed in 1915 by Louis Béchereau, the same designer who designed the SPAD S.VII. In order to achieve a forward-firing system it adopted an original solution. Instead of placing the machine-gun over the top wing, it placed a nacelle in front of the engine with a gunner operating it.

This system proved to be problematic because it made the communication between the pilot and the gunner difficult, if not impossible. The nacelle vibrated very badly and some times it tend to part company from the airplane in the middle of the flight. Even a mild-crash or nose-over could hurt badly or even kill the gunner. It was much better the other two systems, the pusher configuration, like the Airco DH.2 had or the machine-gun mounted over the top wing like the nieuport 11 had.

Some variants tried to fix the aforementioned problems and therefore it saw several variants:

• SPAD SA.1: The prototype
• SPAD SA.2: Main production variant. Some small improvements
• SPAD SA.3: Gunner trainer variant with a complex system that allowed the pilot to fire a rear-firing machine gun from the cockpit.
• SPAD SA.4: Improved version of the SA.2
• SPAD S.D.: Three seater version
• SPAD S.G.: Single seater fighter version. The nacelle was still present but without the gunner.
• SPAD S.H.: Prototype for the SPAD S.V which was the prototype for the SPAD S.VII

Given it's riskiness it wasn't very like by the French pilots and was quickly replaced, in fact only 107 were manufactured, and it never equipped an entire squadron.

SPAD SA Series - Foreign Users

Today we bring you a new French airplane which, despite not being the best that France offered during the war, it achieved some renown when piloted by Russian hands.

The SPAD SA. was a tractor biplane of unorthodox design which, in order to achieve a forward firing airplane (don't forget that when this airplane was designed, neither France nor any of the entente countried had the synchronized machine gun technology) , placed a machine-gun equipped nacelle in front of the pilot placing the engine between the pilot and the gunner.

In foreign service it was offered to Italy, who rejected it and to Russia, where they received some field modifications like the replacement of skis instead of wheels. Although the Russian spectatives for this airplane were low (since the word spad in Russian means 'Slump' or 'Plummet') at least two crews achieved some success with this airplane. In november 1916 one aerial victory was claimed by the 2nd Lieutenant Vladimirovich and his gunner Bashinskiy.
It's also known that at least one served with the Bolsheviks during the Russian civil war before it was retired for being obsolete.