Eduard Hanriot HD1- Bad decals?

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

Several weeks ago, I bought the weekend edition of the Eduard 1.48 scale Hanriot HD1 at the local shop- primarily because I’ve always liked the Italian color scheme with the red and green lower wings. (The kit only includes one set of markings.) Also, the kit only cost $11.

I was very disappointed when I saw the decal sheet that came with the kit-- the colors are terribly off. The green for the roundels is a bluish-green, reminds me of a swimming pool. The red is a red-orange instead of a true red. The decals for the rudder stripes are in the wrong order- red-white-green vs. green-white-red. (Even if I wanted to ignore the bad color and use the decals, I’d never find a matchign color to paint the under sides of the wings to match.)

I’ve seen the decals in the other Eduard kits for Italian aricraft-- they are printed in the right colors. I’ve emailed Eduard, to see if I got a defective kit, but I got no answer, and it has been several weeks.

I noticed today that Eduard also has a regualr edition of the Hanriot with Italian markings, and the box art leads me to believe that it comes with markings for at least two aircraft. This kit retails for about $32.

It ticks me off to think that I have to go buy an aftermarket decal sheet (if one even exists- I haven’t found one yet) that costs as much as the kit, or pay over three times the price so that I can get a decent decal sheet.

I’m hoping someone has leftover Italian decals from another Hanriot kit, that they’ll never use and are willing to part with…

I’m also curious to find out if every kit has the same crappy decals, or was I just unlucky?

TIA!

2

Why don’t you just paint the markings yourself rather than going through the the headache of finding the correct decals? When I made my Sierra Models vac-form Moraine Saulinier model N I cut masks for the wing roundels and masked off the red white and blue tail and fuselage markings.They came out great with only minor touch-up necessary with a fine liner brush!Much more satisfying(not to mention less expensive)than ordering an aftermarket decal sheet.

3

I have some italian cockades from the earlier Hanriot kits that are in good shape. You can have them if you still need them.

The variations in the Italian national colour placement on real aircraft came from the Hanriot being either early purchases from the French manufacturer and the licence versions manufactured in Italy. The French manufacturer simply painted the center sphere green instead of the blue. Maachi factory beghan the correct form by painting the outer ring green. Transferring that to the tail-unit caused some concern as this reversed the positions on the rudder. Some aircraft went into the field with reversed colour positions for both the wings and rudder. Try checking out some original photos of your scheme.

Also watch out for the Eduard Hanriot top wing fit. The rear locator hole for the trestle in the top wing will probably need some widening.