I don’t even remember why I got this little SPAD - the only WW I biplane I’ve ever built was the venerable Snoopy Sopwith Camel. But after studying it online I decided I wanted to build it as Lt. Frank Luke’s aircraft when he was destroying German zeppelins at a blistering pace in the fall of 1918.

The build is out of the box, including grossly oversized wing struts, and after airbrushing the most prominent colors for the 5-color French camouflage (ivory underside and light gray wing tops) I handpainted everything else. I used the Print Scale 72-046 decals, but disregarded their camo scheme, opting to use the instructions in the Eduard 1/48 scale kit. As you might expect for a 1918 subject, information is sparse on how Luke’s plane was painted, and to complicate things he crashed a few, so the information and photos we do have may not be the one he flew on his last mission.

But it was a fun little two-day build, and if the decals and the paint colors are a little speculative, it was worth it to learn about the career of this extraordinary aviator.