Early Bird Jenny

The Early Bird Jenny is an American homebuilt aircraft that was designed by Dennis Wiley and produced by the Early Bird Aircraft Company of Erie, Colorado, also by Leading Edge Airfoils of Peyton, Colorado. When it was available the aircraft was supplied as a kit and also in the form of plans for amateur construction.

Design and development
The aircraft is a 67% scale replica of the First World War Curtiss JN-4 Jenny. It features a strut-braced biplane layout, a two-seats-in-tandem open cockpit, fixed conventional landing gear and a single engine in tractor configuration.

At the time the kit was first made available the aircraft could be constructed as a US FAR 103 Ultralight Vehicles exemption two-seat trainer or as an amateur-built aircraft.

The Jenny is made from a mix of steel and aluminum tubing, with some wooden parts and its flying surfaces covered with doped aircraft fabric. Its 27.50 ft span wing has a wing area of 175.0 sqft and the cockpit width is 24 in. The acceptable power range is 46 to 65 hp and the standard engines used are the 50 hp Rotax 503, 64 hp Rotax 532, 64 hp Rotax 582, 74 hp Rotax 618 two-stroke engines and the 62 hp Geo Metro-based fuel injected Raven 1000 UL three cylinder, inline, liquid-cooled, four stroke automotive conversion powerplant.

The aircraft has a typical empty weight of 419 lb and a gross weight of 800 lb, giving a useful load of 381 lb. With full fuel of 9 u.s.gal the payload for pilot, passenger and baggage is 327 lb.

The supplied kit included the Rotax 503 engine. The manufacturer estimated the aircraft's construction time from the kit to be 500 hours.

Operational history
By 1998 the company reported that 53 kits had been sold and 24 aircraft were flying.