spadvii

Spads B9913 and B9911 are on the flight line at Mather Field, Sacramento, California, on April 14, 1919. The mechanic on the far wing is holding the wheel chock rope, indicating that the airplane is about to take off. Captains John Hambleton and Lowell Smith flew these two Spads that day. The Spad in the background lacks a fuselage roundel in the normal position and is thus inferred to be B9911 of the Victory Loan Flying Circus, Far West Flight.

B1357 was one of 19 British-built Spad VIIs by Mann, Egerton & Co. that arrived in the USA in late-1918, and was then fitted with an American 150 horsepower Wright-Martin Model-A motor. It was then assigned to Rockwell Field.

Spad VII B9913 was photographed at San Francisco while being unloaded or loaded onto the railway car on April 12, 1919, for their Victory Loan Flying Circus, Far West Flight air show that day. At left of the car is James Earl Fraser's original plaster statue "End of the Trail" sculpted for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition held on this very site. A slumping warrior on horseback symbolized the worsening plight of Native Americans. War Shortages prevented Fraser from casting this iconic figure in bronze. The structures associated with the Exposition were mostly demolished in 1916.