In September, 1916, Guynemer had tried at the front one of the first two Spads. On the 8th he wrote to M. Béchereau: "Well, the Spad has had her baptême du feu. The others were six: an Aviatik at 2800, an L.V.G. at 2900, and four Rumplers jostling one another with barely 25 meters in between at 3000 meters. When the four saw me coming (at 1800 on the speedometer) they no doubt took me for a meteorite and funked, and when they got over it and back to their shooting (fine popping, though) it was too late. My gun never jammed once." Here he went into technicalities about his new machine-gun, but further on reverted to the Spad: "She loops wonderfully. Her spin is a bit lazy and irregular, but deliciously soft." The letter concludes with many suggestions for minor improvements.
His correspondence with M. Béchereau was entirely devoted to a study of airplanes: he never wandered from the subject. Thus he collaborated with the engineer by constantly communicating to him the results of his experience. His machine-gun was the great difficulty. "Yesterday," he wrote on October 21, 1916, "five Boches, three of them above our lines, came within ten meters of the muzzle of my gun, and impossible to shoot. Four days ago I had to let two others get away. Sickening.... The weather is wonderful. Perhaps the gun will work now." In fact, a few days later he wrote exultingly, having discovered that the jamming was due to cold and having found an ingenious remedy.
November 4, 1916. Day before yesterday I bagged a Fokker one-seater biplane. It was two meters off, but as it tumbled into a group of our Nieuports, the controlling board would not give the victory to anybody. Yesterday got an Aviatik ten meters off; passenger shot dead by the first bullet; the plane, all in rags, went down in slow spirals and must have been knocked flat somewhere near Berlincourt. Heurtaux, who had seen it beginning to fall, brought one down himself ten minutes later, like a regular ball.
On November 18 next, after going into particulars concerning his engine which he wanted made stronger, he told M. Béchereau of his 21st and 22d victories:
As for the 21st, it was a one-seater I murdered as it twirled in elegant spirals down to its own landing ground. No. 22 was a 220 H.P., one of three above our lines. I came upon it unawares in a somersault. Passenger stood up, but fell down again in his seat before even setting his gun going. I put some two hundred or two hundred and fifty bullets into him twenty meters away from me. He had taken an invariable angle of 45° on the first volley. When I let him go, Adjutant Bucquet took him in hand—which would have helped if he hadn't already been as full of holes as a strainer. He kept his angle of 45° till about 500 meters, when he adopted the vertical, and blazed up on crashing to the ground....
The Spad ravished him. It was the heyday of wonderful flights on the Somme. Yet he wanted something even better; but before pestering M. Béchereau he began with an inspiring narrative.
December 28, 1916. I can't grumble; yet yesterday I missed my camera badly. I had a high-class round with an Albatros, a fine, clever fellow, between two and ten meters away from me. We only exchanged fifteen shots, and he snapped my right fore-cable—just a few threads still held—while I shot him in the small of his back. A fine spill! (No. 25).
Now, to speak of serious things, I must tell you that the Spad 150 H.P. is not much ahead of the Halberstadt. The latter is not faster, I admit, but it climbs so much more quickly that it amounts to the same thing. However, our latest model knocks them all out....
The letter adds only some recommendations as to the necessity for more speed and a better propeller.
But much more important improvements were already filling his mind. He had conceived plans for a magic airplane that would simply annihilate the enemy, and as he would doggedly carry on a fight, so he ruminated, begged, and urged until his idea was realized. But he was forced to practice exhausting perseverance, and on several occasions the lack of comprehension or sympathy which he encountered infuriated him. Yet he never gave up. It was not his way in a workshop, any more than in the air; and when, after some ten months' struggling, trying, and frequent beginning over again, he saw himself at last in possession of the wonderful machine, he rejoiced as a warrior may after forging his own weapons.