Howard Morey's Pennco Flyer (JN-4D "Jenny")

[billn53]

Who was Howard Morey, and what is his Pennco Flyer?

 

Howard A. Morey is generally recognized as the dean of aviation in Wisconsin. He left his home of Birchwood, Wisconsin in 1924 to begin an aviation career that spanned more than 60 years.

 

After learning to fly at the Heath Flying School in Chicago, Morey returned to Wisconsin and began barnstorming around the state. In 1926 he purchased a Waco 9 and started Pennco Airport in Madison, Wisconsin.

 

 

 

The following year he operated and managed Royal Airways located just southeast of Madison. Renamed Royal Airport, his was the first airport in Wisconsin with permanent buildings, and provided the public with the first scheduled flights from Madison to Chicago.

 

Airshow at Pennco/Royal Airport:

 

 

He also managed the Madison Municipal Airport (now Dane County Regional Airport) from 1938 – 1942. When the military took over Madison Airport, Morey moved his operations to Middleton. There he established Morey Field, offered flying instructions, and sold planes such as the Cessna on display below.

 

With Morey (left), is Theodore A. Waterman, manager of Morey's Cessna distributorship:

 

In 1939 Morey began providing civil pilot training for University of Wisconsin students. Howard also provided glider training for army aviators, part of the War Training Service Program, which trained 1,500 glider pilots.

 

Morey's public service in the field of aviation was long and distinguished. In 1924 Governor Goodland called upon Morey to be a member of the Governor's Advisory Board on Aeronautics. Governor La Follette appointed him to the Wisconsin Aeronautics Board in 1937. This group functioned in an advisory capacity only since it had no appropriation. However in 1946 the state legislature created the Wisconsin State Aeronautics Commission and Morey served as its chair from 1947 until 1959.

 

Howard Morey (exiting cabin) arriving in Madison on Wisconsin Central Airlines's inaugural flight (April 3, 1946)

 

Morey also served on the Wisconsin Central/North Central Airlines Board of Directors being named to the board on January 14, 1948. He was named Vice President on April 23, 1952, and then served as President and General Manager from January 1, 1953 until March 9, 1954.

 

Howard continued to fly until 1977, when he decided to withdraw gracefully in the face of declining health. On October 18, 1987, he was inducted into the Wisconsin Aviation Hall of Fame. After logging approximately 20,000 hours flying time and preparing over 2,000 licensed pilots, Howard Morey died of heart disease on November 2, 1995. “I’m the luckiest man in the world,” he had stated a few years earlier. “My work was my hobby.”

 

Management of Morey Field changed hands to his son, Field Morey, and then to Richard Morey, the son of Field. The airport was sold to the city of Middleton in 1998, and its name was changed from Morey Field to Middleton Municipal Airport - Morey Field. Although the airport was sold to the city, Richard Morey still manages the FBO which provides services to airport users. From Howard Morey to his son Field Morey to his grandson Richard Morey, the Morey Airplane Company has become synonymous with Wisconsin aviation.

 

Morey Field (Middleton Municipal Airport) today (where I do my real-life flying):

 

So, what was Morey's "Pennco Flyer"?

 

Pennco (The Pennsylvania Oil Company of Wisconsin) was a major contributor to Morey, hence the name "Pennco Airport". Morey employed his aircraft as "flying billboards" for Pennco. One of these was a Curtiss JN-4D "Jenny":

 

 

The above is the only photograph I have found of this aircraft. "What???", you might ask. "That's a terrible photo. You can't build a model from that!"

 

So true! But, it so happens that in the FBO office at Morey Field there's this large model hanging from the ceiling:

 

and this, boys and girls, will be the markings reference for my build. In that respect, I will be building "a model of a model".

 

Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of choices when it comes to kits of the Jenny. Olimp has a couple of very nice ones in the gentlemen's scale (where I usually work), but I hesitate to do this one in 1/72. Primarily because of this:

 

 

 

Rigging. Lots of it. Something I have only a smidgen of experience doing. So, I thought 1/48 might be a wiser choice. But, the only readily-available Jenny in 1/48 is this classic kit:

 

 

So be it. The good news for me is, this road has been travelled before, in great style! I'm thinking of @clive_t 's most excellent Jenny build, documented here:

 

 

 

which I will follow as faithfully as I can, with the hope that my result will be somewhere as nice as what Clive was able to coax out of this old kit.

 

That's my plan, and I'm sticking to it! Now, back to the bench!

 

 

 

[dnl42]

We all know this is going to need some serious skills. 

[Martian]

I'm up for this one: following.

 

Interested of Mars 👽

[billn53]

3 hours ago, Martian said:

I'm up for this one: following.

 

Interested of Mars 👽

Honored by your presence, O Tentacled One. 🐙

[bigbadbadge]

This looks an interesting build, great backround information and certainly like a bit of rigging.   Good luck with your build project.

Chris

[Andwil]

“Long Rides $5.00”. Love it!

 

If only I could get hold of a time machine.*

 

AW

 

*maybe @Martian has one?

Edited September 11, 2021 by Andwil

[clive_t]

Wow, I am truly honoured, thanks for your kind words Bill! Don't follow mine too closely, though, as I turned mine into a Canuck (Jenny's Canadian sister  )

 

*Edit* but then you already knew that 

 

Looking forward to seeing how yours turns out.

[Martian]

1 hour ago, Andwil said:

“Long Rides $5.00”. Love it!

 

If only I could get hold of a time machine.*

 

AW

 

*maybe @Martian has one?

Sadly not. I refer the distinguished Earthling the response I gave @Navy Birdthe other day:

 

 "The reason for this is that the Time Lords of Gallifrey have a monopoly on Tardis and all other time and space travel related gear. I personally think it is part of a cunning plan to get twenty four months building time for their models between the annual Scalemodel World shows at Telford. We know they attend because K9 tried to do unspeakable things to my leg one year!"

 

Martian 👽

[AdrianMF]

Great intro. And at least you have a start on the colour with yellow plastic!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[billn53]

2 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

Great intro. And at least you have a start on the colour with yellow plastic!

 

Regards,

Adrian

Actually, mine is molded in white. Easier on the eyes than yellow, but not by much.

[billn53]

I spent a couple of hours this morning cleaning up the Lindberg kit's plastic. Here's some of what I had to contend with:

 

Mold release marks everywhere!

 

Good thing I'm not using the wire wheels (the kit gives an option for plain vs wired wheels), but there's no getting around the release marks on the radiator:
 

 

The parts are remarkably flash-free, except for this wingtip:

 

 

There are mold lines along the wing leading edges, invisible against the white plastic but definitely there, that I had to sand smooth:

 

 

I was surprised to find a fair amount of fine surface detail present. Here are some examples:

   

 

 

 

How much of this I can keep (or, want to keep) is yet to be determined.

 

The cockpit openings need work to make them symmetrical. I thought this the best time to do the work needed, before starting on the interior detailing:

 

 

I also need to do something to straighten the wing pieces -- all of them are warped to one degree or the other. The worst is the left-side of the upper wing, shown below:

 

 

No one promised this would be an easy, or quick, build!

 

[Brandy]

Looking forward to this one, although I would have preferred the one true scale! 

 

Ian

[billn53]

14 minutes ago, Brandy said:

Looking forward to this one, although I would have preferred the one true scale! 

 

Ian

 

Patience, Ian! Look what arrived in today's post:

 

 

I do plan to build the Pennco Flyer in God's scale, once I work out all the bugs on this one!

[billn53]

Trying to figure out how to straighten my warped wings...

 

The upper wing presently shows about 7-degrees of dihedral, much more than the 1-degree dihedral of the actual aircraft. I'll probably clamp the wing onto a steel ruler and immerse it in hot water. The question I have is, "How hot?" (and "How long?"). I'm afraid if the water is too hot, I could do more harm than good.

 

If anyone have any experience along these lines, I'd sure appreciate some pointers!

 

******************

 

Later:

Maybe answering my own question, but help for others would be welcome...

 

http://www.austinsms.org/Straightening-Warped-Plastic-Parts.php

 

 

[clive_t]

Bill, notwithstanding the proposed straitening, one other solution might be to consider that the wings were sectional, and with that in mind it may be possible to cut them through at the appropriate points, and reintroduce them (with supporting rods) at the desired angle?

[billn53]

7 minutes ago, clive_t said:

Bill, notwithstanding the proposed straitening, one other solution might be to consider that the wings were sectional, and with that in mind it may be possible to cut them through at the appropriate points, and reintroduce them (with supporting rods) at the desired angle?

Good day Clive! You must be reading my mind! I was thinking that, if I straighten the wing using heat and a rigid straight backing, I will end up with a wing that has zero dihedral. I could then (perhaps) cut partly through the wing and bend at the cut lines to achieve the 1-degree dihedral needed. A bit of glue and/or sprue gloop along the cuts would then fix the dihedral in place. 
Straightening the wing, and starting on the interior, is my goal for today.

 

p.s.  I’ve been admiring your seats and how closely they match the actual seats I see in museum photos.  You wouldn’t by chance have kept a template from yours?

[clive_t]

47 minutes ago, billn53 said:

Good day Clive! You must be reading my mind! I was thinking that, if I straighten the wing using heat and a rigid straight backing, I will end up with a wing that has zero dihedral. I could then (perhaps) cut partly through the wing and bend at the cut lines to achieve the 1-degree dihedral needed. A bit of glue and/or sprue gloop along the cuts would then fix the dihedral in place. 
Straightening the wing, and starting on the interior, is my goal for today.

 

p.s.  I’ve been admiring your seats and how closely they match the actual seats I see in museum photos.  You wouldn’t by chance have kept a template from yours?

Bill, unfortunately not. However if I recall correctly I started with a semicircle of thin styrene sheet (about 1cm radius) and then shaded the bits that needed to be cut out (the sides and the slots in the back) with a sharp pencil. Once I'd removed the unwanted bits, I wrapped the piece around a paint brush handle to form the required curvature to fit the seat. A bit 'trial and error' but once I'd done one, the second was copied from the outline of the first.

Hope this helps! 

[billn53]

1 minute ago, clive_t said:

Bill, unfortunately not. However if I recall correctly I started with a semicircle of thin styrene sheet (about 1cm radius) and then shaded the bits that needed to be cut out (the sides and the slots in the back) with a sharp pencil. Once I'd removed the unwanted bits, I wrapped the piece around a paint brush handle to form the required curvature to fit the seat. A bit 'trial and error' but once I'd done one, the second was copied from the outline of the first.

Hope this helps! 

Thanks, Clive. That helps. I’m thinking of doing this first with paper, and when I get a good template transferring it to plastic. If I’m really ambitious I’ll see if I can get my Cameo Silhouette to cut some plastic for me (my gf gave me the Silhouette last Christmas and I’ve used it only once, for a very simple task. It’s about time I started learning how to use it 😉 )

[clive_t]

That paper template sounds like something I should have done!

[billn53]

It's Sunday afternoon and time for a progress report!

 

I got my warped wing situation straightened out (pun intended!), with thanks due to my to fellow Britmodellers who gave me some good tips & suggestions.  Here's how I did it, after a lot of trial and error:

 

For the two lower wing sections, I clamped them to a pair of steel rules and immersed them in water at 180-185F for two minutes. I then transferred them to an ice water bath. 

 

The ruler I had hoped to use with the upper wing was too long to fit in my heating tray, so I immersed the wing without benefit of being clamped to the ruler. After the two-minute hot soak, I retrieved the wing and sandwiched it between two layers of thin foam, and beneath a glass plate that I had weighted down:

   

 

The above procedure gave me mixed results. The lower wings were a total success: completely straight. The upper wing's situation had improved significantly. Where before the wing had approximately 7-degrees of dihedral, the dihedral had been reduced to about 2-degrees:

 

 

If need be, I was willing to accept the 2-degree dihedral, but I thought I could do better than that! I inserted an appropriately-sized spacer under each wingtip, taped the wingtips to my workbench, and heated the center of the wing with a hair drier. While doing this, I held the center down with a wooden dowel (not shown in the photo below, because unlike @Martian and his tentacles, I cannot grow extra hands when needed).

 

 

After letting the wing cool to room temperature, I took a measurement and was pleased to see that the dihedral is now very close to the desired 1-degree!

 

 

Of course, there's no telling how wings will look after they're assembled to the fuselage and all the struts & rigging are in place, but at least I'm starting off on the right foot!

 

My second goal for today was to begin work on the cockpit area. First step is to add the wood framing inside the fuselage. Here's a drawing of the subject area:

 

 

and a photo from a 1/16 scale Jenny, under construction (the kit is by Model Airways, more info here: https://modelexpo-online.com/Model-Airways-CURTISS-JN--4D-JENNY-116-SCALE_p_680.html )

 

 

 

Note that there are three vertical wooden frames in the cockpit area (one just aft of the fuel tank, and one behind each of the two seats). There are also three wooden rails running longitudinally: one at the bottom of the fuselage, which holds the floorboards; one at the top of the fuselage, which holds the instrument panels and throttles; and the last rail between the other two, which holds cross-members for the seats.

 

The next two photos are of an actual Jenny, showing the same areas as described above:

 

 

 

 

 

My first task was to convert various sizes of styrene strips into wood!

 

I selected some styrene strips that I thought I could use for the interior framing and painted them with Tamiya Desert Yellow:

 

 

Next, I gave them a liberal coat of Burnt Sienna oil paint:

 

 

I used a piece of scrub sponge to remove the excess oil paint, leaving a wood grain pattern on the strips:

 

 

I'll let the oil paint dry, then coat the strips with transparent yellow or orange to add depth. Total overkill, I know! No-one will be able to see my beautiful wood effect once the fuselage is closed up. I might as well have just painted the strips brown! But it was a fun distraction after all the stress I had with my warped wings!

 

Last item for today: I am presuming that the Howard Morey's Pennco Flyer was finished in clear doped linen. At least, that's how it appears in the (poor) photo I have. I've never done a model with CDL before, so this one will be stretching my modeling boundaries. I've been researching CDL online & in the BM forums, and have learned that there's no single color that is appropriate -- the color and shade of CDL varied depending of origin (UK, Germany, etc.) and age. (One advantage of having only one black & white photo of the Pennco Flyer is that I can choose just about any version of CDL, and noone can say I'm wrong!).

 

Here's the paints I have to choose from:

 

 

I'm leaning strongly toward using the Tru-Color "Yellow Doped Linen", but for the cockpit interior, I decided to go a shade darker with Model Master Radome Tan:

 

 

Right now, it appears unnaturally uniform, but it should look a lot better after the framing is in place and I add some shadowing effects.

 

One more thing I want to share -- I found this YouTube video and think it is a great introduction on how to simulate CDL on models:

 

 

 

That's all for today! 

 

[billn53]

test

 

Sorry, but for some reason the prior post didn't show on the forum until after I made this one.

 

Carry on!

[dnl42]

Excellent start! 

As much as I'd love to have one of these in 1/48, it's easy to keep this kit out of my stash.

[VT Red Sox Fan]

Bill amazing work—will be really interested in how you create the linen—and to think that when I build this right of passage kit years ago I thought the mold marks on the radiator were actually meant to be there🤣🙄🤦‍♂️best, Erwin

[billn53]

One of the nice benefits of being a senior citizen in Madison is that one can audit classes at the university for no cost. I've signed up for three classes this session, which is a bit of a handful and eats up a few hours each day that I could otherwise use for modeling.

 

So, my building rate is quite a bit slower than it has been in the past. Nonetheless, I am making progress...

 

I installed the side frames in the cockpit area, then used a very-thinned-down gray to apply some shadowing to the interior. I also made a "false" bottom for the fuselage, where the floor boards and control items (rudder bars, sticks, and their associated linkages) will go:

 

 

Next, I added the interior rigging (made from 10 gauge guitar wire) and the seat rail:

 

 

This photo gives an idea of how much (or, how little) will be visible through the cockpit openings:

 

 

On a different note, after class today I took a pilgrimage to the site of Pennco Field (later re-named Royal Airport), on the south side of Madison. The only evidence that an airport was once there is a small historical marker: 

 

The other side of the marker commemorates Charles Lindbergh's visit in 1927:

   

 

The Spirit of St. Louis landing at Pennco Field:

 

If not for the marker, one would never suspect that this site was once at the forefront of Wisconsin aviation:

 

 

[dnl42]

Excellent work! 

 

Hm, there seems to be a pattern in Lindbergh and airfields. Roosevelt Field, where he started his solo flight, is also a shopping mall.