Jenny, Don’t Change that Number …

Founded in 1975 and named for the first man killed in a heavier-than-air flying-machine, Selfridge Military Air Museum is a storied institution located on Mount Clemens, Michigan’s Selfridge Air National Guard Base (MTC).

The museum’s collection of vintage and historical military aircraft will presently be supplemented by the arrival of a Curtis JN-4—a World War I-era biplane known colloquially by generations of pilots and aviation enthusiasts as the Curtiss Jenny, or simply, Jenny.

Selfridge Military Air Museum deputy director Ed Kaminski set forth in a news release: "There are currently only seven Jenny aircraft left in the world, and now our museum will have one of them.”

The Jenny was graciously gifted to the museum by FreeStar Financial Credit Union.

The JN-4 bound for exhibit suffered a landing mishap, damage resultant of which will be corrected by the museum’s technicians as they restore the aircraft over the coming winter months in preparation for a spring 2024 unveiling.

Notwithstanding the type’s current scarcity, the first Curtiss JN-4 Jennys arrived at Selfridge Field in 1917 and were plied resolutely to the training of American pilots bound, imminently, for the deadly skies of First World War Europe.

Though not destined to be restored to airworthiness, the museum’s Jenny will live out its days in dignified static display amongst the thirty-odd historic machines of which the Selfridge Military Air Museum’s collection consists.

Speaking to the subjects of the challenge of restoring the JN-4 and the skilled artisans by which the work will be accomplished, Mr. Kaminski stated: "You're recreating something that was built eighty-years ago. They're all kids at heart. Instead of building a model airplane, they are building the real thing."

Upon the aircraft’s restoration, museum visitors will enjoy beholding the old Curtiss Jenny in the fullness of her wartime glory. Moreover, the Jenny will augment the museum’s complement of WWI-era aircraft, which currently features only a single SPAD XIII replica.

Steeped in history and boasting a remarkable 105-years in operation, Selfridge is one of the U.S.’s oldest continuously operated airfields. Consistent with its august environs, the Selfridge Military Air Museum’s collection comprises a veritable honor-roll of fighting, reconnaissance, and transport aircraft, to include rare specimens of Convair’s C-131 Samaritan and TF-102A Delta Dagger, Douglas’s A-26 Invader, Ling-Temco-Vought’s LTV A-7 Corsair II, Martin’s B-57 Canberra, McDonnell’s RF-101C Voodoo, Northrop’s F-89 Scorpion, and Republic’s F-84F Thunderstreak and Thunderflash. The balance of the museum’s collection is salted with legendary machines the likes of Douglas’s A-4 Skyhawk, Fairchild Republic’s A-10 Thunderbolt II, and Grumman’s mighty F-14A Tomcat.

Mr. Kaminski concluded: "We're all excited about it. It's very historic to have a Jenny at Selfridge."

FMI: www.selfridgeairmuseum.org