Bryan Jensen
Pilot of "The Beast"

Meet Bryan Jensen, pilot of “The Beast”. Bryan has had an obsession with flying as far back as he can remember. Growing up on a farm in rural Iowa, Bryan spent many hours with his thoughts and eyes fixated towards the sky. After years of trying figure out how to make his dream of flying  a reality, Bryan found a $5 “Learn to Fly” coupon in a local newspaper and convinced his parents to drive him to the local airport and cash it in. So at the age of 13, Bryan received his first flying lesson for $5. From that day on, Bryan was even more obsessed with flying and was soon hired at the local airport to take care of “anything that needed to be done”. His payment? Flying lessons! 

One of Bryan’s most memorable aviation experiences was soloing 3 different aircraft the morning on his 16th birthday. His mother then took him to the DMV where he received his driver’s license later that day. It was about this time Bryan saw his first airshow flown by a pilot in a Pitts Special biplane. The internal exhilaration felt by watching this show was another turning point in Bryan’s life.

Upon graduating from the High School, Bryan had obtained his Commercial Pilot’s Certificate along with an Instrument rating. Looking for a college to further his aviation education, he enrolled in the University of North Dakota’s aviation college. There he quickly became a certified flight instructor and started to teach flying during the second semester of his freshman year for the University along with adding new certificates and ratings of his own.


After four years of flight instructing, flying charter, air ambulance, and seeding clouds, Bryan graduated from UND and flew for several commuter airlines until he was hired by a Major airline at the age of 23. Bryan has since flown over 100 different types of aircraft including the Convair 580, DC9, MD80, Boeing 727 and Airbus 320. Several mergers later, Bryan is still flying for a Major airline and has over 21,000 hours of flight time. You can find him in the Captain’s seat of a Delta A320 jet when not flying The Beast. 


In the mid 1990’s, Bryan finally got the chance to fly some “real” aerobatics when he purchased an Acro Sport II biplane and joined a local IAC chapter. Soon he was flying aerobatic contests and having a ball. Of course, the quest for bigger and better aerobatic mounts started, and within the next 10 years, Bryan had flown a number of aerobatic aircraft including the Christen Eagle, Laser 200, Pitts S1S, and Extra 300L. All of them are great aircraft. However, the thought of having an aircraft with 1:1 or greater thrust to weight ratio was intriguing to Bryan. 

In order to make a long story short, let’s just say that Bryan met Kevin Kimball of Jim Kimball Enterprises, and learned that Kevin had an “idea”. 
The “idea”?? 

THE BEAST!!!

This impressive biplane is delighting airshow crowds across the country! Once you see, hear and feel it, you’ll understand why!