SPAD S.XI

The SPAD S.XI or SPAD 11 was a French two-seat

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

reconnaissance aircraft of the First World War. The SPAD 11 was the work of

Louis Béchereau Louis Béchereau (July 25, 1880 in Plou, Cher – March 18, 1970 in Paris) was a French aeronautical engineer and pioneer of French aviation. Biography After having attended the École nationale professionnelle in Vierzon, Béchereau went to ...

, chief designer of the

Société Pour L'Aviation et ses Dérivés Lactalis is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier SA. Lactalis is the largest dairy products group in the world, and is the sec ...

(SPAD), who also designed the highly successful

SPAD 7 SPAD may refer to: In aircraft manufacture * Société Pour L'Aviation et ses Dérivés, also Société Provisoire des Aéroplanes Deperdussin and Blériot-SPAD, French aircraft manufacturer (1912–1921) * SPAD VII, SPAD S.XII and SPAD S.XIII, F ...

and

SPAD 13 The SPAD S.XIII is a French biplane fighter aircraft of the First World War, developed by '' Société Pour L'Aviation et ses Dérivés'' (SPAD) from the earlier and highly successful SPAD S.VII. During early 1917, the French designer Louis B ...

single-seat fighter aircraft. It was developed under military specification C2, which called for a two-seat fighter aircraft. As a result of its failure to meet the levels of performance and agility demanded by the C2 specification, the SPAD 11 was used, along with the more successful

Salmson 2 The Salmson 2 A.2, (often shortened to Salmson 2) was a French biplane reconnaissance aircraft developed and produced by Salmson to a 1916 requirement. Along with the Breguet 14, it was the main reconnaissance aircraft of the French army in 191 ...

and

Breguet 14 Breguet or Bréguet may refer to: * Breguet (watch), watch manufacturer ** Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747–1823), Swiss watchmaker ** Louis-François-Clement Breguet (1804–1883), French physicist, watchmaker, electrical and telegraph work * Bré ...

, to replace ageing

Sopwith 1½ Strutter The Sopwith Strutter was a British single- or two-seat multi-role biplane aircraft of the First World