Hanriot HD.1 - Foreign users

Today, we are altering our criterion a little bit. Despite being a French design, it wasn't produced for French users but for foreign users, Italy and Belgium, mainly. That's why we consider France as a foreign user, despite it was manufactured in France, but also in Italy by Macchi, which manufactured more exemplars than the parent firm. Also, given the importance this airplane had in the Belgian army, we are going to reserve entries exclusively for Belgian and Italian ones.

The Hanriot HD.1 was a French single seat biplane fighter aircraft. It was rejected to serve in the French army in favour of the SPAD S.VII and thus, it was offered to both Belgian and Italian armies where it served successfully. In fact, it became the standard Italian fighter of the Great War. Of a total of 1200 airplanes built, 831 were manufactured under license by the Italian Macchi company.

This airplane, influenced by the Sopwith designs, mainly because Hanriot had produced under license the Sopwith 1/2 Strutter, was produced in 1916.

It was powered by a 110hp LeRhone rotary engine and, although it wasn't very fast, it was highly maneouvrable and was very popular among the pilots due it's easiness to control. In order to keep the good climbing and altitude numbers, it's armament was oftenly restricted to a single synchronised vickers machine gun, althought there was place for a second one. This airplane introduced a new feature (for the era): The machine guns were at the side of the cockpit and not in front, providing more safety in the case of a crash. However in the Italian built versions the machine-gun was fitted on the front of the cockpit and not at the sides.

The users covered in this entry are:

• Ecuador: The newly created Ecuadorian military aviation school bought their second airplane which named it 'Telegrafo Iº' (Telegraph 1st). It achieved renown within that country when the Italian born pilot Elia Liut crossed the Ecuadorian Andes flying that airplane.
• France: Apparently the French naval aeronautics employed some floatplane sub-variant of the HD.1 in order to defend their naval bases. It seems that they sold all their exemplars to the US Navy. As we couldn't find reliable info about how they looked like, the drawing should be considered as speculative.
• Paraguay: The Paraguayan National Air Force bought three airplanes from Italy. As we couldn't find graphical information about their colours under Paraguayan command, the drawing is speculative.
• Switzerland: The Swiss Army Aviation bought some HD.1 in order to equip their fighter squadron based in Dübendorf, near Zürich. One of them is still displayed in the Dübendorf aviation museum.
• United States: The US Naval Aircraft Factory adquired 10 HD.1 which used them to make trials on take-off platfroms from warships in the post-war years. They were also employed as advanced trainers. 
• Venezuela: The Venezuelan Military Aviation School adquired some French made HD.1 during the late 10s/early 20s in order to equip their fighter squadron.
• Austro-Hungarian Empire: It is known that at least one ex-Italian aircraft performed a forced landing in Austro-Hungarian soil and they captured the airplane and pushed it into service with their air corps.