Hanriot-Dupont HD-2 'U.S. Navy'

Last crawled date: 1 year, 1 month ago

The Hanriot HD.2 was a fighter aircraft produced in France during the First World War. The design was based on that of the HD.1, but the HD.2 was a purpose-built floatplane with enlarged tail surfaces and wings of shorter span but greater area. Like its predecessor, though, it was a conventional single-bay biplane with staggered wings of unequal span. The prototype had twin pontoon undercarriage, with a small third pontoon under the tail, but this latter feature was discarded on production machines. The HD.2 was developed specifically as an interceptor to defend flying boat bases, but soon was used as an escort fighter to protect French reconnaissance flying boats. The United States Navy also bought 10 examples with wheeled undercarriage, designated HD.2C. Both the French and United States navies used these aircraft in early experiments in launching fighters from warships. The United States Navy replicated the French trials where a HD.1 had been launched from a platform built atop one of the turrets of the battleship Paris and built a similar platform on the USS Mississippi to launch a HD.2 from. The French Navy converted some of their HD.2s to wheeled configuration and used them for trials on the new aircraft carrier Béarn. #1919 #aircraft #airplane #avion #avions #dupont #fighter #flight #Hanriot #hd2 #navy #Planes #sletch2003 #US #US_Navy #USA #war #warbird #WWI