3 Hanriots

[andonio64]

Hallo,
my next project is dedicated to possibly the most neglected allied fighter in WW1: the Hanriot HD1.

The Belgian and the Italians got theirs from France who did not adopt that plane for its pilots, but many Italian and Belgian squadrons were enthusiastic abut the HD1. We in Italy were so enthusiastic that the MACCHI industries purchased the production licence from the French factory and built such a lot of them… 880 something just before the armistice (100+ more after the end of the war).



I have these  three kits (2 kits are packed in the left box) and would like to work on them in parallel. For sure I have in mind one Italian and one Belgian:
1. Willy Coppens, the balloon buster, his all-blue plane nicknamed by the Germans "Der blaue Teufel"
2. Silvio Scaroni (2nd Italian WW1 ace with 26 officially confirmed victories - 76th squadriglia).

The third is still to be decided because no other country adopted it for its air force…
Any Idea?
I have plenty of Italian pilots to choose among, but I was also thinking about turning the 3rd HD1 into an HD2 with floats…

Here are the sprues (still packed) …


And the decals from the boxes and from the aftermarket (the all-Belgian sheet)


In the meantime, here I post the references I am currently reading for advice and inspiration:

(1) Pieters, Walter. Above Flanders' Fields: A Complete Record of the Belgian fighter pilots and their units during the great war 1914-1918. Grub Street - London, May 1998


(2) Guttman, Jon. Balloon-Busting Aces of World War 1. Oxford: Osprey Publishing Ltd., 2005


(3) Alegi, Gregory. Hanriot HD.1 / HD.2. Windsock Datafile No. 092. Albatros Productions Limited, 2002


(4) Scaroni, Silvio. Impressioni e ricordi di guerra aerea (Impressions and memories of aerial warfare), Torino, Sten grafica, 1922


(5) Scaroni, Silvio. Battaglie nel cielo (battles in the sky), Milano, A. Mondadori 1934 (2ª ed. Tascabili Longanesi 1971; ristampa Associazione Culturale Sarasota, s.d., circa 2012)


(6) Gentilli, Roberto; Varriale, Paolo; Iozzi, Antonio. Gli assi dell'aviazione italiana nella grande guerra (Italian airforce aces in the great war), Roma, Ufficio Storico dell'Aeronautica Militare , 2000


I am researching for the details of each plane and will add details I come over later in this thread...

Thanks for following

Antonio

[radio]

Antonio I will follow your thread.
Martim

[ermeio]

Bravo, Andonio
Pay attention to the drawings in Data file 92 since they are flawed....the wingspan is undersized.
All the best

[andonio64]

Thanks Martin!

Bravo, Andonio
Pay attention to the drawings in Data file 92 since they are flawed....the wingspan is undersized.
All the best

Thanks ermeio, I need to have a precise drawing of both the HD1 and HD2 because in his account Willy Coppens said (2) that "Hanriot very generously gave me a larger elevator (off an HD2) allowing the plane more agility in maneuvers". So I'll need to replace the HD1 tail elevators with HD2.

Yesterday I measured the whole horizontal tail planes from the Data file 92 and the HD2 are 1 mm wider and 1 mm larger in both dimensions (this would mean 48 mm in real life). But if you say the drawings are not that accurate that could be just a resize error...
I need to find the real dimensions and scale them in 48th on paper...

hmmmm

[uncletony]

Following with great interest!

[iwik]

 Hi Antonio!
You're right!
Truly an underestimated aircraft. One of my top three wish list for WNW.
Will follow closely as I have a couple in my stash.
Surely have some books about the bird!!!!
Ciao
Iwik

[RAGIII]

Antonio,
I am looking forward to what you do with the Hanriot!
RAGIII

[coyotemagic]

Looking forward to this project, Antonio!  For the third, how about US Navy?  Or another Italian job, one in aluminum dope, another in beige? Or Coppens' camo kite?
Cheers,
Bud

[andonio64]

Hi everybody thanks for your participation, I appreciate it a lot!
About the third one I am at the moment undecided between

1 - Giorgio Michetti  (the seahorse one) : same squadriglia as Scaroni (less victories). It is seen around in aluminum dope and in CDL. But on the Italian Airforce historical archive book (my ref. no. 6) I found one HD1 of his in a sort of dark green mottled camo (over the CDL?). I need to study better his mounts...

2 - US Navy floatplane (I have few infos about possible profiles, just one on Windsock 92) or maybe a USN "land" plane (I read USN had some HD2 on the ground) any additional information about this will be welcome...

thanks for sharing any info on those planes...


As per Coppens' plane, does anybody happen to have a couple of spare white thistles in 48th?

It is not so difficult to draw in vectorial shapes but then I sould print it in white...
 

Not to speak about tne "nemo me impune lacessit" motto on the turtleback...
 

[Des]

An excellent project you are taking on Andonio, I will be following along with great interest.

Des.

[ermeio]

Thanks ermeio, I need to have a precise drawing of both the HD1 and HD2 because in his account Willy Coppens said (2) that "Hanriot very generously gave me a larger elevator (off an HD2) allowing the plane more agility in maneuvers". So I'll need to replace the HD1 tail elevators with HD2.

Yesterday I measured the whole horizontal tail planes from the Data file 92 and the HD2 are 1 mm wider and 1 mm larger in both dimensions (this would mean 48 mm in real life). But if you say the drawings are not that accurate that could be just a resize error...
I need to find the real dimensions and scale them in 48th on paper...

hmmmm
[/quote]
GAVS published some original macchi structural drawings with quotes in the late 90s
I have them but not at hand (some 700 km from here).
The best drawings are those in aircraft archives and probably PaoloMiana has the same GAVS drawings, veri detailed.
The drawings from Marty Digmayer have the wrong ratio between length and wingspan, and I don't know if the problem was due to the printing process. This seems to be  common problem with all MD Drawings, though
I had to discard the wings in my scratch built 1/32 Hanriot,since the missing wingspan is macroscopic (15mmor so...)
I fear that if you resize the drawings  to the correct wingspan you will end up with a much wider plan form.
I will try to check if I have the 1/32 drawings among those that I brought with me

[ermeio]

Some quoted drawing is here:

http://static.rcgroups.net/forums/attachments/4/1/2/1/5/2/a6330269-65-Hanriot_HD1.jpg

[andonio64]

Thanks for this drawing ermeio, I need only the right dimensions of the elevators of both the HDs 1 & 2 to check the Coppens' HD1 tail and make it like an HD2...

Good night everybody!

Antonio

[andonio64]

The first HD will be:

Willy Coppens
(6 July 1892 – 21 December 1986)

As everybody knows Willy Coppens is Belgium's leading fighter ace and the champion "balloon buster" of World War I.
He is credited officially 37 victories, 35 of which were achieved destroying balloons
He served in escadrilles 1 and 4 but 34 of his victories were scored in Escadrille 9.

This is the profile I will make


Coppens when getting the replacement plane after the German bombing raid on 13 June 1918 on the unit airfield destroying all their Hanriots said:
"it was camouflaged in Beaumarais-Calais in an asinine way, it resembled one of those varnished wooden snakes you see in toyshops.
At the first occasion I had my machine painted in blue all over."

In mid September he received the no.23 portrayed in the drawing above (taken from (2) ) and painted in blue as well.

On Wikipedia I found that Coppens used a larger bore 11 mm Vickers machine gun, having upgraded his weaponry prior to June 1918.
I'll take the Gaspatch 1/48 Vickers 11 mm

I still have to compare the elevator shape and size HD1 / HD2 to understand if I should replace those supplied by the kit.

The engine should be 110 hp Le Rhone rotary engine, right?

The main issue here are the stencils:
- Thistle
- motto
- S/N (H-D 23)
that are in white... I don't know how to produce them...

Any idea?

[andonio64]

The second Hanriot, as I said will be the one of

Silvio Scaroni
(Brescia, 12 May 1893 – Milano, 16 February 1977)

He ranked second Ace in the Italian lines with 26 officially confirmed victories.

All of his victories were achieved when serving in the 76a squadriglia (November 1917 / July 1918), only the first victory was scored flying a Ni.17, the remainder was scored on the HD1.
He scored three victories in the same day during the Istrana battle (Dec. 26 1917). In that time they had replaced the Ni11 with HD1.

This is the profile I will make (S/N 7517)

(Taken from (6)  )

He wanted to double the armament of his HD1 with two Vickers 7.7 instead of the single MG displaced to the port side of the fuselage.