Its founder Armand Deperdussin (born 1867) had been a travelling salesman and a cabaret singer in Liège and Brussels, before making his fortune in the silk business.

The trading arm of the Comptoir Industrial et Colonial bank discovered that he had been funding this through fraudulently obtained loans using forged receipts from his silk business as security.

Despite claims that he used much of the money to help develop France's aviation expertise, he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison, but as a concession for first offenders he was reprieved ("sursis") and released immediately.

A consortium led by Louis Blériot bought the company's assets in 1913 and reorganised it as the Société Pour L'Aviation et ses Dérivés, retaining the SPAD acronym.

The pilot sat behind the wings, as in a conventional design, while the observer/gunner was seated in a nacelle, or pulpit, in front of the propeller, attached precariously to the landing gear.

These designs, the SPAD A-series of models S.A.1, S.A.2, S.A.3, and S.A.4, were built in small numbers, around sixty each for French (mostly S.A.2) and Russian air forces (mostly S.A.4), and were neither popular nor successful.

Compared to earlier fighters, when the SPAD VII appeared in 1916 it was a heavy and unmanoeuvrable aircraft, but pilots learned to take advantage of its speed and strength.

The SPAD XII was a minor variant, the first to use the geared Hispano-Suiza V-8 engine, which allowed it to be armed with a 37 mm (1.46 in) single-shot Hotchkiss cannon (moteur-canon) firing through the propeller hub.

Accordingly, although 300 were ordered, most were completed as normal SPAD fighters, with one (flown by Charles J. Biddle while with the USAAS' 13th Aero Squadron) and two may have served with the US Air Service in France.

Single-seat SPADs were flown by many ace pilots, including Italy's Count Francesco Baracca and the United States Army Air Service's Capt.

Although SPAD had been successful, they were unable to keep up with demand and production of their later fighters was spread out among other aircraft manufacturers, including both direct competitors, as well as numerous companies that would become well known after the war.