Curtiss JN Jenny

[1] Thousands of surplus Jennys were sold at bargain prices to private owners in the years after the war, and became central to the barnstorming era that helped awaken the US to civil aviation through much of the 1920s.Its tractor propeller and maneuverability made it ideal for initial pilot training with a 90 hp (67 kW) Curtiss OX-5 V8 engine giving a top speed of 75 mph (121 km/h) and a service ceiling of 6,500 ft (2,000 m).Due to its robust but easily adapted structure able to be modified with ski undercarriage, the Canadian Jenny was flown year-round, even in inclement weather.[15] The removable turtle deck behind the cockpits allowed for conversion to stretcher or additional supplies and equipment storage, with the modified JN-4s becoming the first aerial ambulances, carrying out this role both during wartime and in later years.In a series of tests conducted at the US Army's Langley Field in Hampton, Virginia, in July and August 1917, the world's first "plane-to-plane" and "ground-to-plane, and vice versa" communications by radiotelephony (as opposed to radiotelegraphy which had been developed earlier) were made to and from modified US Army JN-4s[e] by Western Electric Company (Bell Labs) design engineers Lewis M. Clement and Raymond Heising, the developers of the experimental wind generator-powered airborne wireless voice transmitter and receiver equipment.USMC pilot Lt Lawson H. Sanderson mounted a carbine barrel in front of the windshield of his JN-4 (previously, an unarmed trainer that had a machine gun mounted in the rear cockpit) as an improvised bomb sight that was lined up with the long axis of his aircraft, loaded a bomb in a canvas mail bag that was attached to the JN-4's belly, and launched a single-handed raid at treetop level, in support of a USMC unit that had been trapped by Haitian Cacos rebels.[23] Although the JN-4 almost disintegrated in the pullout, the attack was effective and led to Sanderson in 1920 developing further dive-bombing techniques to provide Marine pilots with close aerial support to infantry comrades.[109] Among many later films depicting the barnstorming era when the Jennys "ruled supreme" and played a feature role, was The Spirit of St. Louis (1957) and The Great Waldo Pepper (1974).[111] Broadcast on April 15, 1987, by PBS, the National Geographic special entitled "Treasures from the Past" featured the restoration and first flight by Ken Hyde of a JN-4D that would go on to win the "Lindy Award" at the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh '87.