Early Bird Spad 13
The Early Bird Spad 13 is an American homebuilt aircraft that was designed and produced by the Early Bird Aircraft Company of Erie, Colorado. When it was available the aircraft was supplied as a kit and also in the form of plans for amateur construction.Design and development
The Spad 13 is an 80% scale replica of the First World War SPAD S.XIII. It features a strut-braced biplane layout, a single-seat open cockpit, fixed conventional landing gear and a single engine in tractor configuration.
The aircraft is made from a mix of steel and aluminum tubing, with some wooden parts and its flying surfaces are covered with doped aircraft fabric. Its span wing has a wing area of. The cockpit width is. The acceptable power range is and the standard engine used is the fuel injected Geo Tracker four-cylinder, inline, liquid-cooled, four stroke automotive conversion powerplant.
The Spad 13 has a typical empty weight of and a gross weight of, giving a useful load of. With full fuel of the payload for pilot and baggage is.
The supplied kit included the Tracker engine. The manufacturer estimated the construction time from the kit to be 600 hours.Operational history
By 1998 the company reported that 35 kits had been sold and one aircraft was flying.
