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370
Looking over the engine bed of my machine I was led for the steenth time to marvel at the flimsiness of the construction and the strain that same flimsiness apparently withstands. The Spad is almost a perfect aeroplane ^[[in design,]] and its weight is such that it requires an enormous pulling power to keep [[strikethrough]] up [[/strikethrough]] it in line of flight. The motor we have seems capable of the job surely enough for my ^[[level]] air speed at 10,000 feet is in the neighborhood of 198 kilometers an hour or 123 miles per hour. On a stiff climb the 'bus makes 75 miles an hour and goes into the thin cold atmosphere above 14,000 feet in [[strikethrough]] the time it takes the [[?]] [[/strikethrough]] a little over twenty minutes time. Think of the time it takes ^[[an explorer]] to gain the same height by scaling, say Pikes' Peak.

The Spad is also made with heavier motors and more guns in both single and double seater planes 
The weight is necessary because the German's favorite tactic is a swooping dive, a burst of machine gun fire and the prolonged dive to

Transcription Notes:
confirmed Spad is a ww1 aircraft