The Spad S.XIII, Volume 3 - Late Verion: about to be released!

[Martin]

So... ...we finally made it.
Volume 3, the last book of the Spad S.XIII-Saga (https://www.amazon.com/Spad-S-XIII-Spa-Manufacturers-S-C/dp/1953201776/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&sr=1-3&text=Martin+Sch%C3%BCtz) is about to be released in the next days. Massive 357 pages close the theme.
All available information about late Kellner and Blériot-production will be included, including numerous camouflage patterns until the end of their production.
A very short glimpse also will be taken to the Bernard-Camo again and especially their markings in US-service, which was way different as displayed in the French Air Service (but the main information about Bernard can be found in Vol.2).
37(!) 4-views on planes of USAS-aces are included, numerous of them were never released before... ...and other known ones partly corrected. This means; 74 pages full of ace-plane drawings (2 full pages for each)!
Every US Aero that flew the Spad S.XIII and their pilots is featured in detail.
The structural USAS build up on the Western Front with all the neccessary personal to know is featured as well.
Many unseen photos will accompany all chapters and show up unit insignia examples.
The specials in this book are the bomb-carrying systems for the S.XIII, used by the 2nd (internally) and 3rd Pursuit Group (externaly) as well as a big chapter about the propeller-production and the companies used for propellers mounted on S.XIII.
Extensive Post War section for every country that used the S.XIII after WWI.
Another view will be taken onto the Spad S.XVII as we did on the S.XII in Vol.2 and the S.VII in Vol.1.
We undertook the biggest possible effort to produce the several pages long serial number blocks of the TOTAL Spad-production. THis was not officially in existence in this combined way before... ...until today.
As it was pretty clear it would happen, a bigger "errata & addenda"-section was also added (way more addenda then errata) to add to the information on Vol's.1 & 2. It will feature some whopping surprises!
And last not least, the historical background that brought the US into WWI will also be highlighted in a way that some don't know that much about in detail...

So, this is it. Everything we know about the plane today and its service in the various air services in war time and post war also.
I can only hope you like it.

For modellers I have following additional infos:

- at www.peddinghaus-decals.de you can get ALL decals of the roughly 100
Spad ace planes of all 3 books. Really ALL of them and in scale 1:72,
1:48 and 1:32 too!

- Peddinghaus Decals also made an arrangement with the Eduard-company
and now obtains the super-rare early and rare Spad S.XIII sprues of this
company in 1:72 scale and re-releases them with different own decals of
these books too. So who might be short on 1:72 Spad S.XIII's...

- These new kits will aso feature 3D printed figures of the aces that will be
extracted from more or less well known up to iconic photos. In 1:72 they
come in sets of 8-9 figures, in the bigger scales they will be sold singly.
Many sets and over 100 WWI aces are still released (and more than 200 of
WWII). If someone is interested, here are a few of them attached too that
are US-Spad-related to have an informal look upon their quality.

For 1:72 scale, following WWI ace-pilot-sets are still released:
- WWI Austro-Hungarian Aces, Part 1
- WWI Italian Aces, Part 1
- WWI Italian Aces, Part 2
- WWI French Aces, Les Cigognes
- WWI French Aces - Ballon Busters
- WWI French Aces - Spad
- WWI US Aces - 1st Pursuit Group
- WWI US Aces - 2nd & 3rd Pursuit Group
- WWI Escadrille Lafayete Pilots (including "Whisky" & "Soda"!)
- WWI German Aces, Part 1: 1916
- WWI German Aces, Part 2: Jasta 5 & 11 (ideal for "Bloody April" 1917)
- WWI German Aces, Part 5, 1918

Ideal for any diorama. Many more will be released. We can only hope that you like them. So, a lot of infos... ...take care and all the very best! :)
Martin

[Kirk R. Lowry]

Bonjour Martin!

This is good news indeed!

Salut!
Kirk

[Martin]

Thanks. The work behind that project is unimaginable... ...especially Vol.3, which is about 100 pages bigger than the first 2 Vols. A monstrous theme overall...

[JackH]

Martin has discussed details of Spad XIII volume 3; I just want to say that it is now published!

Please give Amazon a few hours to update their websites, then you can order it.

Asia is celebrating the "Year of the Horse"; Volume 3 of Spad XIII is Aeronaut's first release in our "Year of the Spad". Other Spad titles will be announced as they are published.

All the best,
Jack Herris

[Frederic Mason]

Excellent tops it... I checked steady on Amazon after Jack's notice and was able to find and purchase it on the Bezos Buffet on Sunday afternoon March 1st. The POD arrived at 1:30pm Tuesday March 3rd. The POD is done at their giant Midwest center in Monee, IL, 50mi away, on I57 interstate.

I went through it first doing captions and pix. Now onto the main text at the moment. Pictures/art first is my tactic. Heavy ploughing comes last.

Just loved it sez it and would recommend the title as a first to get in USA WWI Aero purchases. The Spad has always been my favorite of GW Birds in any case. The French knew how to decorate airplanes as did the Germans. British colors are their usual bore. Third come the Italians. Markings got me into GW lore in the first place. How many times can you read a combat report that all say the same thing.

One really needs to buy all three volumes to have a true and complete picture of the Bird. Otherwise, you are seriously hampered. The author and the credited, have done a wonderful service and project seriously required for a multitude of years. One I have personally waited for 67 yrs. At last, the waiting is ending. Now on to more AEF Air Service documents. Courtesy of AERONAUT hopefully.

Cheers - FM :D:):D

[YavorD]

My copy arrived too, from the printers in Brétigny-sur-Orge, France, through Czech Republic and Romania :)
Best regards,
Yavor

[RHWinter]

Received my copy yesterday: Great work!

[Frederic Mason]

Read SPAD VOLUME THREE completely through. I'm tired out, wears me out thinking of all that work which has been poured into this title. Such a vast effort, whew.... This will be the main go to reference for AEF Spad history-command history-squadron history-markings history-ace history, etc, etc, etc. Answers many interests held for so long a time. Author deserves a vacation and rest period from all this concentration.

The different sections are rich in content, and the lineup is spelled out previous, so I will not go into the list. This should merit purchase alone and the rest is all gravy. Particularly liked the host of colorful artwork views of a/c. Makes quick definitions easier for buffs, students, modelers.

The flight colors, wing stripes and other marginal markings have been ignored by the past. Now brought to the forefront. The detailed squadron histories are the best refs out there, baring the solo individual books of same previously in print. Also, the ace questions are well summed up and now laid to rest from further hassles?? Kicked that can long enough????

My main wish now is for a hardcover edition, so that the title will not get scraped by usage over time??? Happy reading :):);)

[Martin]

Thanks for your kind words, Frederic.
I sincerely hope it is the book you (and others) waited for so long and I took every effort to pin it down as exactly as possible.
I owed this to Alan D Toelle and promised to him to do the best possible work on it. And I am so glad that he is still around to see a result on anything he worked on for decades.

Well, and now you know why Vol.3 took longer than expected as it hold so much detailed information (added to personal circumstances of mine during 2025).
I was also tempted to list single serials of planes used by the Aeros or PG's (including their aceptance and scrapping times), but that would have busted ANY size.
Jon Guttman is writing on the USAS PG's and will release books about them in the future. I am very sure he will list the single serials there as he did in the book about the 1st PG, which alone will make these books "must haves".

My personal aim was to bring on the most complete picture about this famous plane as so much was written about still in bits and pieces everywhere and in more (or less) serious attempts, but never before coherent. I always embedded it into the political and developing background of the time to simply understand what was going on around it and the overall background.

The bombing capacities of the plane never was really highlighted before and the USAS had to take the appraoch because of the missing allied ground attack types that the Germans so sucessfully deployed and so much more.

There also was the need to correct some rather well known profiles like the S.XIII of Stovall, which in reality offers so much more than the older "Osprey"-Profile.
A proper speculation about an S.XIII of Joe Wehner can also be found as well as the SECOND S.XIII flown with huge success by by Rickenbacker in the last three weeks of the conflict (but never really was highlighted or discussed). Additionally many never seen before profiles of various USAS air aces are also included etc.
A very hard task to deliver also were the wing markings of the Aeros.
They are still not 100% known in detail and some speculations had to be made here and there, but I guess this is the best possible result we can have today. More than 1000 photos (also of other Spad-types) and a lot of cross-reading and comparisons - often with the use of magnifying glasses were needed to find out details. Often very frustrating work.
But, for example it led to the identification that the individual tactical numbers of planes of the 141st were not just plain black... ...but framed.
And I would bet a 1000 bucks that they were orange... ...but cannot prove it.
Overall, it simply had to be the best possible standard-work of the time.

Also again I have to thank about the numerous contributors of photos and information around the globe - that also let to the important "Errata & Addenda" section to point out mainly missing information that concerns the first two volumes, most importantly Marc Chassard, Zdeněk Čejka, Greg van Wyngarden, Jon Guttman, Paoli Minari, Roberto Gentilli, Jonathan Wagstaff, Colin Owers and Cyrille Manileve of "Memorial Flight". They all fed the poor guy on the hot seat...

Only 2 rather pure writing/concentration mistakes I found out by myself - before anyone comes around with it:
- Page 207:S.XIII "Black 6" is Serial S.7731 and not S.7713
- page 260: Knowles' plane of course is from the 95th Aero, not the 103rd.

And finally; not also as a modeller; the very complex camo schemes that were painted by detailed purpose (not by chance) and in detail onto the Spads by its various subcontractors demanded at least 3-view (top, starboard, port), better 4-view displays to catch all neccessary detail. Just one sideview simply cannot catch the complexity.
The same problems occur with the camouflaged S.VII.

The S.XII and S.XVII are not a grave problem for their camos in comparance as they always only were produced by SPAD and therefore always also had their camo painted on (see Vol.1 of S.XIII).

So, this is it... ...still sitting on Jolly Jumper and riding into the sundown. :)
My work is done after years of blood sweat and tears.
Others to the fore, please... :p

I am sure some folks also want to know which aces planes are DRAWN in 4-view in the last volume... yes? Here you go for the appetite (alphabetical order):

- Beane, James/Kimber, Arthur: 22nd Aero, Red 12, S.15268
- Biddle, Charles: 13th Aero, Red 0, S.4489
- Brooks, Arthur/Jones, Clinton: 22nd Aero, Red 20, S.7689
"Smith IV"
- Cassady, Thomas: 28th Aero, Blue 1, S.8525
- Chambers, Reed: 94th Aero, Yellow 11, S.4526
- Chambers, Reed: 94th Aero, Yellow 6, S.15225
- Cook, Harvey: 94th Aero, Red 24, S.15169
- Cook, Everett: 91st Aero, Red 0, S.15564
- Coolidge, Hamilton: 94th Aero, Red 22, S.15034
- Grey, Charles: 213th Aero, Black 21, S.15209
- Guthrie, Murray: 13th Aero, Red 20, S.7506
- Haight, Edward: 13th Aero, Red 9, S.15204
- Hartney, Harold: 27th Aero, Black 15, S.15149
- Holden, Lansing: 95th Aero, White 22, S.15123
- Hunter, Frank: 103rd Aero, Yellow 21, S.7567
- Knowles, James: 95th Aero, White 5, S.15343
"Alfred"
- Larner, Gorman: 103rd Aero, Yellow 13, S.2742
- Luke, Frank/Wehner, Joseph: 27th Aero, Black 21, S.15310
- Luke, Frank: 27th Aero, Black 26, S.15155
- Luke, Frank: 27th Aero, unmarked, S.7984
- Ponder, William: 103rd Aero, Yellow 24, S.15557
- Ponder, William: 103rd Aero, Yellow 10, S.8522
- Putnam, David: 139th Aero, Red 0, S.15137
- Rickenbacker, Edward: 94th Aero, White 1, S.4523 "Old No.1"
- Rickenbacker, Edward: 94th Aero, White 1, S.7775 "New No.1"
- Rummell, Leslie: 93rd Aero, White 3, S.7613
- Schoen, Karl: 139th Aero, Red 10, S.15191 "Virginia Ann"
- Seerley, John: 13th Aero, Red 16, S.4585
- Stenseth, Martinus: 28th Aero, Blue 17, S.7653
- Stovall, William: 13th Aero, Red 15, S.4574 "Fat"
- Swaab, Jacques: 22nd Aero, Red 7, S.7640 "Mayer II"
- Swaab, Jacques: 22nd Aero, Red 15, S.18869, "Mayer III"
- Tobin, Edgar: 103rd Aero, Yellow 20, S.15297 "Swastika"
- Vail, William: 95th Aero, Red 7, S.15603
- Vasconcells, Jerry: 27th Aero, Black 13, unknown serial
- White, Wilbert: 147th Aero, White 21, S.7588
- Wright, Chester: 93rd Aero, White 2, S.7525

For modelers; decals for all named above planes are available in scales
1:72, 1:48 and 1:32 at Peddinghaus decals (as they are all other profiles
of Vol. 1 & 2 too).

[Frederic Mason]

Yes, I think you are safe with the orange color. Probably a favor to his (Hobey Baker) old college Princeton University team colors. Hobey Baker - I can't get over that he and McCudden would pull that fatal trick - turn back into the field. It should have been automatic to jam the nose down straight ahead, your only hope?? The great aviation surprise - no motor. :(:(

[Martin]

As long as we don't have any kind of fabric from tactical nos. from the planes of the 141st, we can only estimate which color the outlines of these no.'s on their planes had as there is also no written testimony about them too (in contrary to the wing stripes)
The only thing which is fur sure is that these no's weren't plain black as long suggested by many, but outlined whether the more common yellow or red.
But as the 141st had orange at disposal to paint on their insignia and the wing stripes I would bet a lot on suggestng of the use of orange on the outlines of teh tactical no's too.
It was Hobey's unit through and through... ...and therefore "Princeton-Orange" for the outlines to 99% for me. It should be no mistake. :cool: