Civil JN-4s

[Welsh Dave]

I am thinking of building a small flying model of a Curtiss Jenny or Canuck, and would like to finish it in one of the many colourful schemes used by barnstormers and flying circuses (circi?).

While I've managed to amass quite a few images in black and white, the problem on this side of the Pond is finding out what the colours were.

Here are the "possibles" I've found so far:

JN-4D.

Gladys Roy. Entire airframe apparently covered with exotic murals! Only thing clearly visible looks like a lion's head, but ortho film shows little detail.

Mable (sic) Cody Flying Circus. Dark fuselage and vertical tail, remainder apparently natural fabric. Illegible inscription on rudder. Polished metal cowling.

Geo. Smith. Dark fuselage and wheels, perhaps dull metal cowling.

Earl Daugherty. Overall dark (blue?) with cartoon on the rudder. Looks like the archetypal trench-coated detective. Possibly connected with Daugherty's work for the Long Beach P.D. Close-up of the cartoon and confirmation of colour would be welcome.

Lillian Boyer. Tinted photo shows bright green fuselage and tail, wheels in an indeterminate colour, red or orange. Any underside detail?

Gladys Ingle often worked with a Jenny shown in a painting as having blue fuselage, wheels and fin, yellow wings and tailplane, and red-white-dark blue striped rudder. No. 27 in circle on fuselage. Reproduced too small on the Internet for heraldic-style fuselage badge and white inscription across upper wing to be legible.

Again in a painting, a wingwalker transfers from one all-red Jenny to another. Both are marked "Flying Circus" on the fuselage in different sizes, and have the Curtiss script logo on the rudder. Good source if authentic, but were there any markings underneath?

Bessie Coleman. Photographed with another (or the same?) muralled Jenny.

Blue Bird. Lovely looking Jenny, presumably overall blue except for the top decking from rear cockpit forward, which was darker (black?) and separated by a white stripe. Capt. Jorstad named on fuselage, but picture too small to show rudder inscription.

Chaplin Aircraft Corporation. Overall lightish colour, polished cowling. Company name in a dark rectangle with white lettering. Dark rudder with small white number. Aircraft possibly orange and black.

13 Black Cats. Spectacular rudder badge and pilot uniform, but no pics of complete aircraft or livery details.


JN-4Can

Heddon Flying Fish. Nice picture of the replica in the Henry Ford Museum (actually a JN4D), but no clear tail details. Top of fuselage and cowling - what colour? Could be white or cream, or even silver. Kitted by Renwal.

Lyman Slack. Large-scale model of a beautiful Canuck with blue fuselage, silver wings and tail. White maple leaf on rudder, various badges on fuselage. Highly polished NM cowl. More legible photo appreciated.

Ormer Locklear. Canuck in natural fabric except for dark fin and rudder with white-outlined 7. Dark inset outline stripe on fuselage side.

More detailed info on any of these machines, or any other civil JN-4s, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[buzz1941]

Oddly, there doesn't seem to be a lot out there on civil Jennys....

[greatwarpilot]

Dave,

Everyone seems to like doing models and paintings of the wartime aircraft in the colours of famous aces. If you're working in the post-war period, why not do up a JN-4C in the post-war colour of an ace (or two)?

The American subsidiary to Bishop-Barker Aeroplanes Limited (BBAL) - the Inter-Allied Aircraft Company put their mark on a number of JN-4s (ref. p. 169 in the new edition of Wayne Ralph's excellent bio, 'Barker, VC'). A handful of 'Canucks' built by Canadian Aeroplanes Limited of Toronto survive to this day in the US. I would wager that a good proportion of these were first imported by BBAL.

Alternatively, why not do one of the Canucks that participated in the 1919 Toronto-New York air race? Some of these were fairly attractive, and are tied to a historic (and relatively well photographed) event. Plus, you have the added bonus that when you're done, the Jenny would look perfect sitting next to a D.VII done up with Barker's race number. And heck, you could even race them

Cheers,