Dennis W. Jarvi Aviation Collection

The collection contains flight manuals, pilot’s operating handbooks, pilot training materials, posters, and photographs acquired by Dennis Jarvi throughout his life. Many of the aircraft for which there are flight manuals and pilot’s operating handbooks, are aircraft which Jarvi flew, including those he flew as a fighter pilot in Vietnam. Similarly, several of the photographs, drawings, and lithographs of aircraft, depict models that Jarvi himself flew. The collection is arranged into three series.

Series I, Crew Check Lists, Handbooks, and Manuals, 1958-1992, is arranged alphabetically by aircraft model. The series starts with several owner’s manuals and pilot’s operating handbooks for Cessna models, mainly from the 1970s and 1980s. Next in the series are flight manuals for fighter planes, including the F-101, F-102, F-104, and F-105. The series also includes manuals and handbooks for Piper Apache, Piper Warrior, and Piper Cherokee models, as well as for the T-37B, T-38A, and T-39A.

Series II, Pilot Training Courses and Publications, 1968-1994, contains pilot training coursework for Cessna private planes. Also included are pilot training materials for the Sabreliner 40/60/60SC models. Finally, a few publications from the Private Pilot series are included, with lesson plans, information on the FAA exams, and an oral study guide.

Series III, Posters, Photographs, and Signed Book, 1942, 1965-1975, 1997, is a significant series in the collection containing both oversize and standard 8x10 size items. Aircraft depicted in the aviation artwork and photographs span from the WWII era through 1975, with the exception of a print of the space shuttle Discovery from 1997. Of note are two rare color lithographs signed by accomplished aces. The first is “Messerschmitt Bf.109E-3 of I Gruppe / Jagdgeschwader 27, 1940” signed by Erich Hartmann, a German pilot known as the most successful fighter ace in the history of aerial warfare. The second lithograph is titled “Supermarine “Spitfire VB” (Rolls-Royce” Merlin 45/46) of No. 92 Squadron, Royal Air Force, 1941” by Keith Broomfield and signed by Robert Stanford Tuck, who was a British fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force with 29 kills during the Battles of France and Britain in WW II. Other aircraft depicted in this series include Flying Tigers from WWII, F-104 Starfighter, F-105 Thunderchief, F-5, F-15, F-16, T-38, and the USAF Thunderbirds. Two large aerial photographs of McConnell Air Force Base in the 1960s are also in this series. Of particular interest is a photograph of Dennis Jarvi as a captain in the USAF, sitting with President Lyndon Johnson at the Officer’s Club at Korat RTAFB Thailand on Dec. 23, 1967, days after Jarvi participated in a mission to Paul J. Doumer Bridge in Hanoi. This series also contains the autograph Jarvi received from Generalmajor Adolph Galland, which is in Jarvi’s copy of the 1969 book Pictorial History of the Luftwaffe, 1933-1945 by Alfred Price.