The Société de Productions des Avions Deperdussin S.XIII was a French WWI era fighter born from the hands of Louis Béchereau, it was an improved variant of the SPAD S.VII, which already amazed Georges Guynemer when he first flew it, it differs from the latter by a more important wingspan, a second machine gun and by a more powerful engine, otherwise, the SPAD XIII and VII are very similar in aspect. Though, those modifications changed a bit the performances of the aircraft which, while it already was very manoeuvrable, gained in manoeuvrability and became the fastest aircraft of its time with a maximum speed of a bit more than 350 km/h. The best allied ace, René Fonck, knew how to use this aircraft to the best, his tactic was to dive over the enemy, gets really near of it and to shoot the cockpit (in one of his testimony, he wrote that once, after a combat, when he stopped his engine, one of his mechanics noticed blood splashes on the propeller of his SPAD, he was so near of his enemy when he shot that the blood of the German crew reached his aircraft).

After it did its first fly in April 1917, it was introduced on the battlefield in May 1917 where it began to replace the SPAD VII and the Nieuport fighters, and as it entered on the battlefield, it quickly gained the reputation of being one of the best aircraft of the war and would have managed to keep the air superiority until the end of the war. Though, in spite of being an excellent fighter between the hand of an experimented pilot, it also shown the same problem as the Sopwith Camel, it was very difficult for an unexperimented pilot to handle it. Thanks to his creations, Louis Béchereau was awareded of the Légion d'Honneur, the highest French distinction, on 12th July 1917.

During the Great War, the SPAD XIII was built in 8 472 exemples and served within the French Air Force as the main fighter of the two last years of the war, in the Royal Air Force, in the Belgian Air Force, in the Italian Air Force as well as in the United States Air Service. Among the aces who flew on such aircrafts, one can recognise several famous pilots such as the most victorious allied pilot René Fonck, who get 92 of his 127 or so victories on this aircraft, the French soldier with the "most heavy" Croix de Guerre 1914-1918 with 28 palms and two stars on its ribbon thank to his 47 victories and one of the craziest pilot of the time, Charles Nungesser, the best Italian pilot, Francesco Baracca, who get 34 victories as well as the two American aces Edward Vernon Rickenbacker, 26 victories, and Frank Luke Jr. with 18 victories.
After the war, the SPAD XIII was exported to other countries such as Japan, Poland or Czechoslovakia.

This aircraft, the c/n 4377 (no civilian registration found or painted on the aircraft), was recovered in the state of a wreck in the 70s by Jean-Baptiste Salis and was restored in 4 years, it was finished in 1992 and kept its original engine, to wit a Hispano-Suiza 8B-V8, and has an Eclair propeller made after an original located at the Air and Space Museum of Paris-Le Bourget and was fully restored using the methods of its time (1918). It does fly with the paint scheme of another French ace, Henri Trémeau.
This aircraft is now the only original airworthy SPAD XIII in the world and the oldest that still exist nowadays.