Pearson Air Museum: Curtiss JN-4 Jenny (photo diary)

by Ojibwa for Kossack Air Force

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Friday, May. 02, 2025 Friday, May. 02, 2025 at 7:15:01am PDT

The Pearson Air Museum at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site in Vancouver Washington, looks at the history of aviation at Pearson Field which began as a military airfield. One of the planes exhibited in this small museum is the Curtiss JN-4, commonly known as the Jenny.

The story of the Jenny begins in 1914 when the U.S. Army needed an advanced trainer aircraft. The Curtiss Aeroplane Company designed the Model J to meet this need and the Model JN-4 was ordered in large quantities. More than 90% of World War I American pilots were trained on the Jenny.

According to the Museum:

“The Curtiss JN-4 Jenny is synonymous with the "barn storming" era of aviation, and is truly the airplane that taught American pilots of the 1916-1925 era how to fly. This training airplane, designed by a team working for the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company in 1914-1915, was built in the thousands during World War I, when it was used to train US servicemen how to fly.

Famously, eight early JN-2 aircraft flew into Mexico with General "Black Jack" Pershing, on the Punitive Expedition against Pancho Villa in 1916-1917, which was the first military expedition by the US Army to use airplanes over a foreign country. All of these "Jennies" were destroyed in landing accidents or by bad weather, but it was a first step in using aircraft in warfare for US forces.

When the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, the Army was in desperate need to train thousands of pilots for the war effort, and required a basic training aircraft that could accommodate both an instructor and a student. Curtiss' JN design was a perfect fit, and Curtiss and several other companies were contracted to construct over 6,000 airplanes.

The most common JN aircraft design was the JN-4D, the first US aircraft to be designed with dual stick control, allowing an instructor and student to take turns flying the aircraft from two separate cockpits, one behind the other. They were outfitted with the reliable, but underpowered, 90 hp Curtiss OX-5 engine. This biplane, much like the larger DH-4 bomber used by US forces, was a wood frame covered with fabric.

As the war progressed, a more powerful training aircraft was required, and Curtiss designed the JN-4H to take the new Hispano-Suiza (built by Wright-Martin) 150 hp V8 aviation engine. After World War I, many of the remaining JN-4H aircraft were rebuilt to a new specification of a "JN-S" (or JN-Standard), which became the standard training aircraft of the early 1920s Army Air Corps.”