The Curtiss JN-4D "Jenny" would have undoubtedly been the most common early aircraft seen in Flagstaff's pioneer days of Northern Arizona aviation.
Thousands of Jenny's were produced in World War One and the feds sold them all off as "war surplus" at embarrassingly low prices. Would you buy an airplane for $300? Heck YEAH! That's what untold hundreds of young guys said when they plunked down their money for a Jenny.
Jenny's were all the rage in the Roaring 20's. Jenny's defined barn storming. Jenny's also established Air Mail! The Story of The Jenny is absolutely mesmerizing, fascinating and captivating.
Recently, we have been studying Flagstaff's first landing field. We read that fuel and oil were available "downtown". That made us wonder how such fuel and oil could have been transported from downtown to the landing field on the far north edge of the small mountain town. Plus, how did a pilot find fuel in the relative middle of aviation nowhere? Plus, where and how did he pour it once he got it to his Jenny?
Well, the accepted "drill" was to fly over downtown and maybe waggle your wings. That was a sign that you were going to land and also need gas. If that didn't work, you would always WALK downtown and rally up some fuel vendors to help you out.
Since the Jenny was arguably the most common aircraft plying the hinterland skies, we have focused on it. We became quite curious as to how to could be refueled. It seems there was a 21-gallon fuel tank situated between the water-cooled engine and the lead seat in the cockpit. The fuel tank fed the engine by mere gravity. NO fuel pump!
That meant that anyone refueling the Jenny simply had to climb atop a wing next to the fuselage and pour gas into the tank. But since gas came from "afar," so to speak, what kinds of gas cans did they use.
Ah, yes! The Trivia of History strikes yet again!
We studied 1920's gas cans so deep we don't even want to tell you.
But this is what a typical aviation Gas Can would have looked like.
And this is the typical conveyance a pilot would have had to employed
to get his gas cans from "downtown" out to where he landed.
Here was the location of Flagstaff's first landing field.
No runways--just a field.
A description of the field.
Another description.
And you boys better use it like you said or we're gonna farm it!
This is a 1932 description of airfields. Note that Barstow still used the "circle town" signal!
If you had Any doubt that the JN-4 could take off from the small Flagstaff landing field,
here's proof it needed hardly any distance for a take off. This is Belmont Park in 1918.
The diagram below show that the infield was perhaps 1000 feet across. EZPZ.
Some Curtiss JN-4 links:
