My Curtis JN-4 Jenny

Davecc

New member
Hello Everyone,
My name is Dave Langkamp and I am a retired industrial designer. I just recently started getting back in RC flying after many years of being away from the hobby. After having followed Flitetest for a couple of years I finally started building again. So I thought I would show everyone my nearly completed Curtis JN-4 Jenny that I have been working on. I designed the plane using Fusion 360 CAD software so that it can be assembled or taken apart in less than five minutes and fit into my Mini Cooper for easy transport. This was accomplished by being able to separate the upper and lower wings from the fuselage and each other for transport. The lower wing is secured to the fuselage using skewers and rubber bands like many of the Flite Test planes. Then the uprights between the wings are slid into slots in the upper and lower wings. The upper wing is rubber banded to the center supports that are located over the front cockpit to hold everything nice and secure.

The Jenny is 1/9th scale and has some components that are 3D printed along with some laser cut parts but for the most part it is constructed of foam core. The landing gear I designed using and upper and lower 3D printed components that are held together using 1/4" wooden dowels. The wheels are laser cut wooden wheels that are made up of four 1/8" rings with a center disk making each 3 1/4" diameter wheel 5/8" wide. The wheels ended up being lighter and quicker to make than using a 3D printer. The upper wing is 60" in length with the bottom wing being 48" long. The length of the plane is 37" from prop to rudder and it stands just a shade over 12" at the upper wing. The plane has an FT 2218B radial motor with a 10" prop. I plan on using a 2200 mah battery. I am still waiting for the servos to be delivered as I write this so they will need to be installed next and everything hooked up. Hopefully I will get a chance to fly it some time this summer once the world has gotten back to some kind of normal. Anyway here are some photos as of my Jenny that I took this morning. I hope you like my efforts.
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Tench745

Master member
That looks great! I tried to get a Jenny right a couple years ago, but using only foam, light piano wire and barbecue skewers it was hard to get a strong attachment for the upper wing. I was actually going through and reworking some bits of it this week and came up with many of the solutions you're using in yours. I love that the wings can be removed, I never got that one quite right.

Yours looks a lot like the old Horizon Hobby JN-4 ARF, but better.
 

Bricks

Master member
That is a great looking build, , made me chuckle as the Mini does not have much room in it. Always wanted one just to beat around our country back roads. they are fun to drive especially if you do a little work to the engine.
 

Hoomi

Master member
If he had he would've built the wrong plane. Waldo Pepper flew a Standard J-1. I know I know, I'm a pedantic nerd... I just love the Jenny so much.
Still a good movie for inspiration.

Even if they did have the one barnstormer character flying a Pitts Special, depicted many years before the first Pitts flew. Art Scholl. who flew the Pitts Special for the stunt scenes in that movie, taught an Aeronautics class at my High School, in conjunction with one of the local community colleges, my Junior year. It was a heck of a fun class, not only learning about aeronautics, but hearing a lot of his stories.
 

cyclone3350

Master member
OMG. For someone who has been out of the hobby, you out did yourself on this one for sure. Video the maiden of you can.