SPAD VII C.1 by Special Hobby

1/48 scale
Kit No. 48009
Price: $29.99
Decals: Three versions – Two French, one flown by French ace Georges Guynemer, the other by Maxim Lenoir, both during 1916; and one Italian, flown by Capitano Fulo Ruffio di Calabria, Summer 1917
Comments: Engraved panel lines, photo-etch details, resin cockpit, faithfully recreated external engine and exhaust pipe detail

History

The SPAD (Société pour l’Aviation et ses Dérivés) S. VII has the distinction of being America’s first fighter aircraft, since upon entering World War I the United States had no fighter planes of its own and purchased well over 200 Spads and Nieuports from the French. Ironically, it is also the fighter flown by America’s first Black fighter pilot, Eugene Bullard.  The SPAD VII was the French company’s first truly successful military aircraft, and took to the air for the first time in April 1916. It showed such promise that it was put into production immediately. The S.VII was an immediate success, mainly due to its sturdy construction, which permitted it to dive at high speeds without coming apart. While not as maneuverable as contemporary Nieuport fighters or opposing German aircraft such as the Albatros or Fokker Dr. I, the SPAD’s ruggedness and relatively high speed (125 mph), as well as its ability to maintain a prolonged dive enabled it to start or break off engagements at will. Two engine types were used to power the S.VII, the 150hp Hispano-Suiza 8Aa and the 180hp 8Ac. It was the first fighter to use a V-8 engine as opposed to the more typical rotary aircraft engines of the era.

The SPAD VII was of standard construction for the period, built with a fabric covered wooden airframe with the forward fuselage covered with steel sheeting. Armament consisted of a single .303 caliber Vickers machine gun mounted slightly to starboard on the forward fuselage upper decking and synchronized to fire through the propeller arc.  By September 1916 it began to appear at the front in both French and British fighter squadrons. The sought-after fighter was also operated by the Belgians, Italians, and Russians. The famed Escadrille Lafayette, made up of American pilots, was operating the SPAD VII in February 1918 at the time it transferred from the French forces to the Air Service of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) and became the 103rd Aero Squadron. More than 6,000 SPAD S.VII’s were built, of which 189 were purchased by the AEF.

The SPAD VII will always be associated with the names of French aces René Paul Fonck and Georges Guynemer. René Fonck was the top scoring Allied fighter ace of the First World War with 75 victories.  Georges Guynemer was another top ace who became a French national hero and was listed as missing in action in 1917.

Corporal Eugene Bullard in his aviator’s uniform in 1917, wearing his pilot’s badge on his right breast and the Croix de Guerre, one of France’s highest military decorations, on his left.

The SPAD VII is also notable as the mount of Eugene Jacques Bullard, the world’s first African-American fighter pilot. Bullard, born in Columbus, Georgia in 1895, ran away from home and traveled to Europe in 1912, largely to escape blatant racism in the land of his birth. He gained fame both as a boxer and a drummer on the Paris nightclub scene before enlisting in the French Foreign Legion, the main branch of the French military open to foreigners, once the Great War broke out. Trained as a machine gunner, Bullard was twice wounded in combat, more severely at the Battle of Verdun, and was decorated multiple times. After recuperating from his wounds, he received a medical discharge, and soon requested assignment to pilot training with the Aéronautique Militaire (French Air Force) on a bet with one of his drinking buddies, a fellow American who was a pilot with the Lafayette Squadron. Bullard was accepted, and upon completion of his training, he was posted to a fighter squadron (Escadrille N-93) in the autumn of 1917. He flew 20 combat missions and claimed two German aircraft shot down, one of which was unconfirmed. His SPAD bore the French words for “All Blood Runs Red” and his nickname was the “Black Swallow of Death.”  Bullard remained in France after the war, becoming a nightclub owner, and in the late 1930’s a spy for the Deuxieme Bureau. A true Francophile, he returned to the United States only when compelled to do so by the Nazi invasion of France in May 1940. In 1960, a year before his death, Bullard received the personal thanks of President Charles de Gaulle for his service to France, when they met at a reception for his 170th Infantry Regiment in New York City.  For more information on Eugene Bullard, see the References below.

For a preview of this kit, please click here.

Construction

Special Hobby’s Spad VII is a well-detailed kit that, with care and perseverance, will build up into a great replica of an iconic World War I fighter. The resin cockpit and engine upper decking, PE details, along with the painstaking molding of some of the smaller plastic parts make for a great kit. That said, it does not exactly fall together. It’s a very nice kit, but it’s not for beginners. In my experience this manufacturer has ambitious designs for its kits that unfortunately are not always matched by their engineering.

Once the cockpit is assembled it is sealed inside the multi-part fuselage, and here is where the fit of the kit begins to reveal its defects. Most parts fit fairly well, but the fit leaves something to be desired at the fuselage halves, the cowl, and the joining of the upper and lower wings. The fuselage has separate parts for its upper decking around the cockpit and over the engine, one of which is resin, and both of these fit fairly well, requiring minimal sanding. But once the fuselage came together, it had a significant gap along its ventral surface, requiring putty and sanding. Also, while it is not too noticeable due to the paint scheme, the fuselage is just a hair wider than the cowl up front.

The cabane struts are too short to reach the upper wing, which the interplane struts are almost too spindly to support. While structural strength tends to increase as you complete any biplane kit, with this one, once finished it was easily the most delicate WWI fighter in 1/48 scale I have ever built. Even when it’s finished, there is a feeling that it could come apart rather easily. The most serious defect in the kit’s engineering is the lower wings, which could easily have been a single piece forming part of the belly of the aircraft. But they are individual parts, lacking locator pins, and have limited contact points to assure secure attachment to the fuselage. For this reason, quick drying cyanoacrylate is the only adhesive I recommend for this stage of assembly. I did not use it initially, relying instead on Revell Contacta cement, then Tamiya Liquid Cement, only to have one of the lower wings break loose no fewer than four times during construction. And yes, it’s more challenging having individual parts for the lower wings, but it’s not the best arrangement in terms of the kit’s structural strength — and the lack of locator pins adds insult to injury.

More than most WWI fighters, completing this kit required a bit of thought. For example, in starting the process of attaching the upper wings, it’s important to work from the fuselage outwards. All the small bits that need to be attached to the fuselage should be dealt with first, since your access to the fuselage will be partially obstructed once you start putting struts on. This means the Vickers gun, gunsight, cabane struts and the Spad’s two lengthy trademark exhaust pipes must be attached before you even touch the interplane struts. The exhausts, airbrushed in Alclad Burnt Iron, were a bit fiddly but I managed to get them cemented on without too much effort.

Bullard in the uniform of France’s 170th Infantry Regiment, prior to his assignment to pilot training with the Aéronautique Militaire. He wears the Croix de Guerre with Bronze Star on his left breast.

Painting – Honoring Eugene Bullard

I elected to paint the Spad in the colors of the aircraft flown by America’s first Black fighter pilot, Eugene Bullard, notwithstanding the fact that he flew with the French Air Force. In 1917, what was then the United States Air Service pursued a strict policy of discrimination against African-Americans and would not accept them for pilot training (a policy that would not change until World War II with the Tuskegee Airmen).

During his lifetime, Bullard maintained that the aircraft he flew in the war, a Spad VII, was blue with a red cowl. This was not the typical scheme of the Spad VII at the time — it was rather a varnished linen overall, which came out to a pale cream or buff, sometimes with the cowl appearing in a different color. Many historians, including Phil Keith and Tom Clavin, in their excellent 2019 biography on Bullard, All Blood Runs Red, cast doubt on the accuracy of Bullard’s asserted paint scheme. Others have deemed it unlikely for an untried pilot to be allowed a non-regulation paint scheme, regardless of the fact that by the time he became a pilot he was already a decorated infantryman, having been wounded in combat. In fact, by the time he earned his wings, Bullard had been decorated at least six times, a rare distinction among novice pilots. His military awards (the list is not comprehensive, for later in life the French government would recognize him yet again for subsequent services rendered) were as follows:

• Croix de Guerre with Bronze Star
• Croix du Combattant Volontaire 1914–1918 (Volunteer Combatant Cross)
• Médaille des Blessés Militaires (Medal for Military Wounded)
• Médaille Engagé Volontaire (Voluntary Enlistment Medal)
• Médaille Commémorative de la Bataille de Verdun (Battle of Verdun Medal)
• Médaille Commémorative de la Bataille de la Somme (Battle of the Somme Medal)

In light of his record, it is entirely possible that Bullard was allowed a non-regulation paint scheme on his aircraft, which led me to take a rather different view than the aforementioned historians. Since he was already a much decorated soldier, it is quite possible his plane was in fact blue. In any case, I am not inclined to second-guess Bullard or any other pilot on the paint scheme of his aircraft, any more than I would second-guess Eddie Rickenbacker, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, or Werner Voss on the appearance of the aircraft they flew.

Accordingly, I airbrushed the Spad a light blue overall, Ashen Blue, an acrylic by Master Series Paints (No. 9057), and painted the cowling Gloss Red, an acrylic by Mr. Hobby (No. 327). Although decals were provided for the French Tri-Color on the rudder, I opted not to use them. Rudder decals rarely if ever look as good as paint, provided you have the patience to measure out the precise width for each stripe in the Tri-color, and do the appropriate masking. For the Tri-Color, I airbrushed on three Model Master enamels, French Blue, Flat White, and Navy Red mixed with a bit of Vallejo’s NATO Black to give it a slight Maroon shade and differentiate it from the bright red of the cowling.

In addition, I recreated with a paintbrush the special logo that Bullard had painted on both sides of his fuselage, an image of a heart pierced by a dagger, from which drips a single drop of blood. It is surrounded by the words, “Tout Sang Qui Coule Est Rouge” which translates to “All Blood Runs Red.” The propeller was hand painted with Humbrol Wood, an enamel, and streaked with Humbrol Chestnut Brown (a color which I am sad to say is defunct, as Humbrol in their wisdom no longer produce it) to simulate a wood grain, and lacquered with several coats of Gunze Sangyo Clear Yellow.

Conclusion

Special Hobby’s Spad VII is an above-average kit, very nicely detailed, but any modeler tackling it should have both experience and patience. With that caveat, highly recommended.

References

• A Handbook of Fighter Aircraft by Francis Crosby (Imperial War Museum, Duxford), Copyright 2002 Anness Publishing Limited, London.
• Remembering Eugene Bullard: The First African-American Pilot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQCiNe8VGzs
• All Blood Runs Red, by Phil Keith and Tom Clavin, Hanover Square Press, Copyright 2019.
• https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/eugene-bullard-1895-1961/
• https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/eugene-j-bullard
• All Blood Runs Red: The Legendary Life of Eugene Bullard – Boxer, Pilot, Soldier, Spy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikjrlMPy3gM
• All Blood Runs Red (short film) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxyW75Jkl-g
• www.usaww1.com
• www.aviation-history.com