To improve our understanding of the combustion characteristics of ethyl pentanoate, a possible second generation biofuel, new experimental data were acquired for its oxidation kinetics in two complementary experiments. In a JSR (jet stirred reactor), concentration profiles of stable species were measured at 10 atm over a range of conditions (equivalence ratios of 0.6, 1, 2, fuel initial concentration of 1000 ppm, and temperatures between 560 to 1160 K). In a spherical combustion chamber, unstretched laminar burning velocities of ethyl pentanoate-air mixtures were measured at different pressures and temperatures and for equivalence ratios in the range 0.7-1.4. The oxidation of ethyl pentanoate was modeled using a new detailed kinetic reaction scheme (2719 reactions, 522 species). The chemical kinetic mechanism proposed here yielded good agreement with the present data. To interpret the results, reactions flux and sensitivity analyses were carried out.