University of Wyoming
Box 1 is arranged alphabetically by folder title. Box 2 contains oversized material.
Martin Jensen was a pioneer aviator. He was born in 1900 in Jamestown, Kansas. He joined the U.S. Navy in World War I and after the war was a barnstormer and stunt pilot, crossing the country in a biplane that he designed. In 1924, he established the Jensen Flying School at Dutch Flats Airport in San Diego. In 1925, he completed a coast-to-coast flight in an OX-5 Jenny. He placed second in the 1927 Dole Trans-Pacific Air Race, a race from Oakland to Honolulu in which ten pilots died. He piloted the Aloha, an airplane designed by Vance Breese in San Francisco. In the same year he transported the MGM Studios lion, Leo the Lion, in a specially built Ryan airplane. The publicity flight was to go from California to New York, but Jensen crashed in a remote area in Arizona. He was unhurt and the lion was transported to New York by truck. Jensen developed the Jensen trainer for his own Jensen Aircraft Corporation, which he lost in the stock market crash in 1929. After that he was Dean of Aviation and taught aeronautics at Beckley College in Pennsylvania, and he also did show flying for the "New York Daily News" and Tidewater Oil Company. In 1935, he joined Langley Aircraft as first vice president. He worked on the design of a plastic molding known as the Langley Process. In 1940 he went to work for Vincent Bendix at the Bendix Aviation Corporation. In 1944, Vincent Bendix established Bendix Helicopters. As a Bendix designer, Martin Jensen devised the Bendix Model J single-seat helicopter, which used a system of coaxial rotors driven by a 450hp Pratt & Whitney R-985 piston engine. In 1951, he joined Douglas Aircraft. He retired in the mid-1960s in the San Diego area. During his retired years, he spent considerable time researching aircraft wing designs. Jensen died in San Diego on February 8, 1992.
The Martin Jensen Papers contain photographs, telegrams, scrapbooks, correspondence, and newspaper clippings about the 1927 James D. Dole Derby Trans-Pacific Air Race in which Jensen took second place to Arthur Goebel. Material also relates to subsequent events related to this race including reunions. There are also photos and newspaper clippings about the 1927 MGM publicity flight in which Jensen piloted a specially designed aircraft that held the MGM mascot lion. There is correspondence, reports, articles, and other printed materials on Jensen's aeronautical developments and other technical issues related to aviation including the Langley Process, wing designs, and helicopter designs. There are photos of Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh. There is a small amount of material including correspondence and photographs related to his personal life. Also included are copies of some of the donor correspondence Jensen had with the director of the American Heritage Center in the late 1980s that give autobiographical details to Jensen's life.
There are no access restrictions on the materials for research purposes, and the collection is open to the public.
The researcher assumes full responsibility for observing all copyright, property, and libel laws as they apply.
There are no known other archival collections created by Martin Jensen at the date of processing.
The Martin Jensen Papers were donated by Martin Jensen between 1985 and 1990.
The collection was processed by John Richard Waggener in February 2007.
Item Description, Box Number, Folder Number, Martin Jensen Papers, 1927-1990, Collection Number 10025, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.