SPAD S.XX

The SPAD S.XX, later known as the Blériot-SPAD S.20, was a French two-seat fighter biplane developed near the end of the First World War as a refinement of the S.XVIII. It carried a pilot and a tail gunner, had an upper wing with a pronounced sweep-back, and was nicknamed the Herbemont after its designer. Too late to serve in the war, 95 were bought for the French air force in the years after it, with three sold to Mitsubishi of Japan and one to Bolivia. Refined racing versions set speed and altitude records, and in 1920 the S.20 took the world absolute airspeed record three times, the last at 309 kilometres per hour flown by Bernard de Romanet.