SPAD S.G

The SPAD S.G was a French single-seat tractor biplane of about 1915 and 1916, built as the S.G1 and the S.G2. It followed the layout of the SPAD S.A2 family, with the propeller and engine buried in the fuselage and a small pod suspended in front of the engine, an arrangement meant to put a forward-firing gun ahead of the pilot before a working synchronising gear was available. A single SPAD S.A-1 was converted into the type with a small circular pulpit nacelle carrying a mock-up of a fixed forward-firing machine gun and with smaller wings. Power came from one 82 kW (110 hp) Le Rhône 9J nine-cylinder air-cooled rotary piston engine, and the type was credited with a top speed of about 161 km/h at 2,000 m. In a similar fashion, at least one SPAD S.A-2 was converted by the Imperial Russian Air Service to carry three fixed forward-firing machine guns. The S.G is a small experimental type in the line of pulpit-gun SPADs that came before the SPAD S.VII.