Spin Models 1/48 SPAD S.A-2

Surely one of the strangest aircraft to see service in the Great War was the S.P.A.D. S.A-2, whose prototype first took flight around May 21, 1915. While most would think that the unusual position of the second crew member - ahead of the propeller in a braced nacelle called "the pulpit" for obvious reasons - was to provide forward fire for the machine gun in the days before gun synchronization, the fact is that the primary reason for this was that the vision of the observer of a tractor airplane was quite often obstructed by the position of his cockpit; this gave the observer the clearest possible field of vision, and only secondarily provided forward-firing armament. At the time of its first flight, the aircraft had a slightly-superior performance to contemporary single seaters, and was placed in limited production in the summer of 1915.

The 42 produced were dispersed in small numbers to various Escadrilles, and accomplished nothing of note during their few brief months of frontline service; they were all off operations by early 1916. "Ma Jeanne," whose unit is unknown, is the best-known S.P.A.D. S.A-2 due to the fact several photos were taken of it which survived the years. And additional 57 of these oddities were sent to Russia, along with 10 S.A-4s, where they lasted longer than they did over the Western Front, though their service is not recorded.

In his book, "One Man's War," Lafayette Escadrille member Bert Hall recalled seeing one S.A-2 flown by a French friend crash fatally, and recorded that none of the Americans would would have anything to do with the airplane. He said the reason for the crash was nose-heaviness of the design, which led to a takeoff stall/spin. The fact the standard S.A-2 only had an 80 h.p. LeRhone rotary meant it was severely underpowered; "Ma Jeanne" had a 110 h.p. LeRhone, which might have something to do with why it survived long enough to be photographed.

Spin is a small company in the Czech Republic that has, to date, produced three World War I aircraft models that are in this reviewer's opinion the very best full cast resin kits I have ever seen. They are the Bristol M.1C "Bullet" , the Ansaldo S.V.A.5,  and this S.P.A.D. S.A-2. The very similar (other than only having ailerons on the upper wing) S.A-4 is also due from the company soon. What is to me incredible is that these kits have been produced at this level of quality at a price fully competitive with anything from Eduard. If one were to airbrush the parts of these Spin kits light grey, it could be argued you were looking at an Eduard kit with the parts off the sprue tree, they are that good.

Looking in the box, one finds a one-piece upper wing, the left and right lower wings, horizontal stabilizer, rudder, fuselage halves, "pulpit" halves, and all interplane and landing gear struts and wheels, prop and engine, in light tan resin, with some flash around the smaller parts which is easily cleaned up. The wings are extremely thin and feature some of the best rib and fabric detail of any World War I model extant. The instruction sheet is a xeroxed drawing of the general assembly, with a detailed look at the assembly of the cockpit and the pulpit, with a general arrangement drawing on the other side. Obviously, the model is not for the beginer. A sheet of very good decals is included for the above-mentioned well-known "Ma Jeanne," of an unknown Escadrille in late 1915.

It would be almost impossible to construct this model without the additional information in the Windsock Mini-Datafile on the airplane. My thanks to fellow WW1 List member Steve Perry for loaning me his copy.