Edito Card of an Hanriot HD.1. Introduced in late summer, 1916, the French Hanriot HD.1 was primarily flown by the Belgian and Italian air services. This plane is in the colors of the Belgian Air Corps. The white thistle on the fuselage was the symbol of the squadron of Willy Coppens, Belgium's leading ace of the war. The sawtooth pattern on the tail identified an individual pilot. Each patrol of three planes had an identifying cowling color. Coppens, as the leading ace, insisted on an all-blue plane.
Hanriot HD.1FighterFrance
"After a hurried lunch, I slipped away to Paris, my first visit being to the Hanriot works. Monsieur René Hanriot, who was one of the pioneers of aviation, was one of its staunchest supporters and had devoted his life to the new science. His little Hanriot H.D.1, graceful and manoeuvrable, designed by Dupont and first adopted by the Belgian Flying Corps, was his outstanding achievement, and he was always delighted to meet any of the Belgian pilots. He took me out to Villacoublay and showed me some of the new types of aeroplanes that were undergoing their tests. In addition, I saw a Fokker D.VII captured from the Germans, a curious-looking machine with its thick wings. Our eyes were so used to thin planes. I met Heurteaux, the great French 'ace' there, and generally enjoyed myself; a real bushman's [sic] holiday in fact!"
Excerpt from Flying in Flanders, a memoir by Willy Coppens, Belgium's greatest ace in World War I with 37 victories, all but two of the victims observation balloons. Coppens first flew a Hanriot HD.1 in June, 1918. The German Fokker DVII was one of the most successful fighter planes of the war. French ace Albert Heurteaux ended the war with 21 victories. His eighth victory was over the German ace Kurt Wintgens.
Flying in Flanders by Willy Coppens, page 188, publisher: Ace Books, publication date: 1971
1918-07-03, 1918, July, Hanriot, Heurteaux, Albert Heurteaux, Fokker DVII
