From Staff Reports
AMERICUS — Students in South Georgia Technical College’s (SGTC) aviation programs recently helped build a replica of Charles Lindbergh’s famous JN4 “Jenny” aircraft from his first solo flight out of Americus’s Souther Field airport. The replica will be featured as part of a special Lindbergh monument and park area at SGTC.
The impressive copper replica was the result of about six months of soldering and riveting by aviation students and instructors. However, this is not the first aircraft replica created by SGTC’s aviation department. The aviation department previously constructed three F22 jet replicas — one for each of the SGTC signs on U.S. Highway 19 and Ga. Highway 49, and one that now stands on display outside the newly remodeled Landings Cafeteria.
Lindbergh purchased his “Lone Eagle” in 1923, from John Wyche at Souther Field by trading in his blue Harley Davidson and the $500 he had in his boots. He had been saving for months while working as a wing walker for a flying circus in Jacksonville, Fla. At the time, about 148 World War I surplus planes were stationed at Souther Field.
With the assistance of Glenn Messer, the man who sold the planes to Wyche, Orville Walker, Curtis Patrick and Bill Paulsen, Lindbergh assembled his plane. During that week, he slept in the deserted barracks of hangar number seven.
Once the process was complete, Lindbergh took his historical first solo flight from Souther Field airport.
Glenn Curtiss, who was a famous American aviation pioneer during the time of the Wright brothers, created the JN4 “Jenny” for the Army in the early 20th century.
For more information about the SGTC avionics program, call Instructor Mike Cochran at 931-2584. For information about aviation maintenance, call James Manning at 931.2582 or Victoria Herron at 931-2583, and for aircraft structural classes, call instructor Mike Reaves at 931-2585.
Fall quarter classes begin Sept. 29. For more information visit the SGTC website at www.southgatech.edu or to apply call 931-2394 in Americus or 229-271-4040 in Cordele.
