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Roscoe Turner - The Man Who Flew with the Lion
Whether it was winning the Thompson Trophy Race or wrestling a lion, nothing
seemed to stop Roscoe Turner! What a pilot! What a personality!
A hundred thousand pairs of anxious eyes were glued to the skies watching the
1939 National Air Races at Cleveland, Ohio. This was the grand finale, the gruelling,
grinding Thompson Trophy Race - toughest test for wings.
One man was the favorite. He with the swanky blue uniform, the diamond-studded
wings of gold, the "big fellow" whose hulk of a frame could barely squeeze into
the cockpit of his small, stub-winged, self-designed racing plane - Colonel Roscoe
Turner.
The crowd loved him, magnetized by his masterful showmanship. His competitors
respected him as the dean of the "plyon polishers," two-time winner of the Thompson,
10-year veteran of air racing. But they'd try anything to force him out of the race.
Right now, they had him. It was the ninth lap and Turner was trailing. His plane,
larger than the others and more powerful, was the last off the ground. Some said
it was too much engine, too little wing.
Then, it happened. On the next lap around, as Turner's plane flashed by the grandstand,
the crowd came to its feet. It was only a blurred streak they saw. Turner had the
ship "wide open." Like a bullet, he shot past the others, whipped around the checkered
pylon and then out of sight and out of sound. The next lap, timers clocked him on
the straight-a-way at better than 350 mph, an unofficial record. He never let up
until the race was won. At times, he had flown faster than even the fastest military
pursuit of that period.
But it was the end of an era. The Races were abandoned during the war years.
When they were resumed again in 1946, military planes dominated the show. It was
no longer the Indianapolis 500 of the Air, the proving ground where pilots, themselves,
could tryout their individual ideas and designs in home-built planes. Then, when
Bill Odom crashed to a flaming death flying the Thompson in 1948, the National Air
Races died with them.
But whatever happened to, Turner? Recently, I was standing on the ramp , at Weir
Cook Municipal Airport serving Indianapolis, watching a trim maroon-and-white Beechcraft
Bonanza swoop down gracefully out of the sky and settle to earth. It taxied up to
a large hangar south of the modern terminal building. The engine stopped. The door
opened and out climbed three businessmen returning from a charter flight.
The pilot lingered in the ship. He checked everything in the cockpit carefully,
wrote something in a little black book. Then, he climbed down, shut the door and
locked it, surveyed his machine with a prideful look and started walking towards
me.
It was Roscoe Turner ... still flying after 43 years in aviation, more than 14,000
hours in the air!
Together, we walked into the big hangar. A large sign on the door says - Roscoe
Turner Aeronautical Corporation. It is considered one of the best-run fixed-base
facilities in the U. S.
Because he runs his organization with a keen, personal touch, pilots fly hundreds
of miles out of their way to bring their planes here for over-hauls and modifications.
One regular customer confided - "When I look at Roscoe, who was my idol when I was
a kid, who's been flying more years than I've lived and is still at it, there's
nobody else I want handling my airplane,
Today, Roscoe is 65. There is little paunch on his six-foot, one-inch frame,
230 pounds. His eyesight is exceptional ("my eyes work faster than my brain"). He
is deaf in one ear ("horsepower-itis"). His hair is greying and thinning. His famous
waxed mustache gives him a debonaire look.
The remarkable thing is, he was flying in the days of wooden props, fabric-covered
wings, open-cockpit planes held together with glue and wires. He is one of the last
of the air heroes, who in the late twenties' and early thirties made the headlines
with spectacular flights and put the spotlight on aviation.
In his lifetime, he has spent more than $200,000 of his own money to make the
airplane safer, fly higher, farther, faster. His racing exploits, the record-smashing
distance, altitude and endurance flights were more than just for fame and recognition
and the money he could make.
When the Army and Navy, for example, were skeptical about the 2,000-horsepower
engine, Turner built his racer around one of the big Pratt & Whitney twin-row
Hornet, radial, air-cooled engines. It powered the plane in which he won the Thompson
for the third time. The engine didn't burn out, as some expected it would. It wasn't
too much power to put in a small airplane and it became the power package for some
of our best fighters in World War II.
On his own, he devised a technique for lowering a complete airplane by parachute.
Then, he went up in the sky and demonstrated its practicability.
Roscoe Turner was born in Cornith, Mississippi, on September 29, 1895, in a log
cabin. His parents were poor farmfolk of Scotch, Irish and English descent. There
were six children. Right from the start Roscoe was a "loner"; he could do things
by himself. Yet he liked to be the center of attention.
At 16, he was driving a five-ton ice truck in Memphis, Tenn. Later he became
a garage mechanic. He learned by doing. In time, it didn't make any difference whether
he was looking at a Packard motor, an old in-line Liberty or a giant 21-cylinder
"corn cob" 3,000 horsepower radial ... he knew its biology like a doctor.
In 1916, he tried to enlist in the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps. They
turned him down, no college background. When the U. S. got into the First World
War, he enlisted as an ambulance driver. He was headed overseas when they transferred
him to the Signal Corps and a balloon outfit in Texas. There, he was commissioned
a Second Lieutenant. He won his first pair of wings as a Balloon Pilot. Shipped
to France, he was assigned as a Balloon Observer. Later he qualified as an Airplane
Pilot. He became one of the few individuals in' the U. S. Air Service to hold all
three ratings as Balloon Pilot, Balloon Observer and Air-plane Pilot. He never saw
action as an aerial combatant. He had just been assigned to an airplane squadron
at the Front, when the war was over.
These photos from Col. Turner's collection show (top of page) the daredevil pilot
with first Gilmore - then two years old, the lion weighed 150 pounds. Lockheed "Express'
in background. Right: Same plane two years later (1933) alongside first 300-mph
plane, the Wedell-Williams Racer which R.T. helped design, build.
Two tickets for the afternoon show? No wonder the crowd hung back in 1934 when
Roscoe marched up to the Warner theatre on Los Angeles' Wilshire Blvd. At right,
Mr. and Mrs. Turner and original Gilmore entertain a young visitor.
Mustered out of the service, he went back to Cornith and opened a garage selling
cars and motorcycles. He bought a half-interest in a wartime Curtiss JN-4 Trainer
and with his partner Arthur H. Starnes, a dare-devil stunt flyer, they started "The
Roscoe Turner Flying Circus."
The show toured the south putting on a death-defying aerial act at carnivals
and fairs. Turner did a wing-walking stunt. He performed on a trapeze below the
speeding plane in "The Swing Of Death." A spectacular climax was "Falling A Mile
In Flames." With Fourth of July pyrotechnics hanging all over the plane they took
off into the night sky. When they touched off the fireworks the plane, like a flaming
meteor, cavorted about the heavens.
Turner had a publicity man's flare for sensationalism. When he read about an
18-passenger sky giant - the first plane built in America by Igor Sikorsky - Turner
negotiated to buy the ship, a twin-engined biplane, largest in the U. S. Immediately,
he turned the plane into a "flying broadcasting studio" with programs originating
a mile high in the sky. One time he flew a Baby Grand piano and other furniture
to Mrs. Coolidge in the White House.
Turner was flam buoyant even in the clothes he wore. The snappy, military uniform,
polished puttees, Sam Browne belt" visored cap, king-sized diamond-studded wings
- they were for a reason. He maintained. "If you appear like a tramp or a grease-monkey
how can you expect people to have any confidence in your business. Furthermore,
a uniform commands respect. Aviation needs it."
In 1928, Turner went to Hollywood for the movies. Howard Hughes was making his
multi-million dollar air epic "Hells Angels." For the final episode he needed a
giant German Gotha bomber, World War I vintage. There weren't any to be found. Hughes
heard about Turner's giant. He hired Roscoe to fly it across the continent, and
they converted the Sikorsky into a bombardment craft.
Roscoe did a lot of the flying for the spectacular aerial combat scenes. They
also made an actor but of him. He played the role of a British Major in the movie,
one of Hollywood's big box-office hits.
Turner started Nevada Air Lines and named it, "The Alimony Special." Fast Lockheed
Vega monoplanes flew regularly scheduled flights between Los Angeles and Reno. Box-office
stars like Bebe Daniels, Miriam Hopkins, Maureen O'Sullivan, Loretta Young, Joan
Bennett, Billie Dove, Clark Gable, and Fred MacMurray took their first airplane
ride with Turner.
Then, things took a bad turn. Hollywood had too many air pictures in the cans.
Flying jobs became scarce. The bottom fell out of any backing for flying ventures
with the stock market "crash," the depression was coming on. Nevada Air Lines went
bankrupt. Al Wilson, a stunt flyer, crashed the Gotha for the grand finale of Hughes'
picture. For the first time in 10 years, Turner was without his own airplane. He
got $10,000 for the Sikorsky, but the money went to payoff debts.
There were fitful nights when he lay awake trying to think of some kind of gimmick,
something different, socko! He drove into a filling station one day and there was
the answer staring him in the face. On a huge billboard was the head of a lion,
the Gilmore Oil Company's advertising symbol.
Turner had a brainstorm. He'd get himself a live African lion, name it "Gilmore."
Then, he'd talk the Gilmore Oil crowd into buying him an airplane and name the plane,
"The Gilmore Lion." He had just the ship in mind, the General Tire & Rubber
Company's Lockheed Air Express job that Henry Brown had flown non-stop, Los Angeles-Cleveland
in 13 hours, 15 minutes! With that plane, Roscoe was certain he could break every
record in the books. He'd take the lion with him on every flight. The Lion with
the Horsepower Roar, the newspapers would eat it up!
Through a friend, he got an appointment with Earl E. Gilmore, President of Gilmore
Oil. Roscoe outlined his plan. Gilmore bought the idea, gave Roscoe a check for
$15,000 and told him to go buy the airplane. While it was being modified and painted,
Turner started to look for his lion.
He found it in the "Yellow Pages"! There was a lion farm near Ventura that raised
and trained the jungle cats for the movies. Lewis Goebel, the owner, saw merit in
Turner's idea and gave him a five-weeks old cub.
There was a big christening ceremony for plane and lion at the Los Angeles airport.
After that, Turner took off with the lion riding in Mrs. Turner's lap. So far as
is known, it was the first time the King of Beasts ever had a ride in an airplane.
"Gilmore" loved it, growled for more.
On Tuesday May 13, 1930, a cream-and-red monoplane - The Gilmore Lion - roared
off the runway into the purple eastern sky. With Turner in the cockpit was "Gilmore,"
the lion, wearing his own flying suit and parachute. The pair were after the trans-continental
record set by Colonel and Mrs. Charles A. Lindbergh just two weeks before. Fourteen
hours and 52 minutes later, they landed at Curtiss Field, Long Island, missing Lindy's
mark by 20 minutes because they were forced down at Middletown, Pa., with an oil
leak.
It didn't make much difference whether they broke the record or not. Overnight,
The Man Who Flew With The Lion became famous. The stunt got him offers from sources
he had never heard about.
Turner and the lion became inseparable. "Gilmore" lived at home with the Turner's,
a house pet. Away from home, the two stayed at the best hotels. When he checked
in Turner signed the register simply - "Roscoe and Gilmore." They made stage appearances
with Eddie Cantor and Joe E. Brown. At the National Air Races that year, Turner
didn't win but he stole the whole show.
There was only one sour note. The lion cub grew too fast! In six months he was
so big he couldn't get into the cockpit, so they made a special seat for him in
the ship's cabin. After 25,000 miles of flying, Roscoe had to "ground" him. Turner
put him in a private zoo in Los Angeles and paid $40 a month for his upkeep for
more than 25 years. ("That guy supported me, the least I can do is pay him retirement
compensation," Roscoe explained. "We went through a lot together.") When "Gilmore"
died in 1957, Turner had a taxidermist make him look life-like and flew the lion
back to Indianapolis.
And so today a huge 700-pound stuffed lion occupies a prominent place in Turner's
Trophy Room. "He's not one of the trophies," Roscoe tells astonished guests. "The
truth is, the trophies belong to him as much as they do to me."
During the decade of the Thirties, Turner blazed trails across a thousand skies.
His exploits became legend. Typical was the flying campaign tour that helped elect
James Rolph, Governor of California. In appreciation, Governor Rolph made him a
Colonel on his personal staff.
Turner is not a Colonel in any branch of the U. S. Military Services. But he
probably has done more for the nation's air power programs than some generals in
the Pentagon. Currently, he is Vice-Chairman of the National Security Commission
for the American Legion, whose national headquarters are in Indianapolis. General
James H. "Jimmy" Doolittle calls him - "An Apostle of the Air Age."
Turner's patriotism is red-white-blue. Perhaps, a good example, is what he did
in the MacPherson-Robertson International Air Race from London to Melbourne, Australia
in 1934. Planes and pilots from many nations were represented, but Turner was the
only American entry. With the Stars and Stripes painted on the tail of his own Boeing
247 twin-engined ship, Nip and Tuck, he and the famous Clyde Pangborn as co-pilot,
took second place in the Speed Section. There was no "angel" backing their flight.
It cost Turner, personally, $35,000. His reward: Prestige for his country in a day
when airplane records were the yardstick of a nation's air power.
That same year, in his Wedell-Williams, sleek, trim, low-wing racing plane which
he helped to design, he burned up the pylons at Cleveland to win the Thompson Trophy
for the first time.
Then, came the day in 1939 when he decided to quit the speed game for good.
When he started the Roscoe Turner Aeronautical Corporation, he had $15,000 in
cash and three airplanes. Today, the corporation has seven planes of its own, hangars,
shops, office building valued at several hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It got that way because Turner put on air shows and attracted thousands of persons
out to the airport every weekend, stimulated a new interest in aviation locally.
In World War II Turner's Flying School turned out 3,500 eaglets to fight and serve
as instructors.
For his war contribution and his ceaseless pioneering in aviation development,
particularly speed flying, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by a special
act of Congress. Only five other civilian fliers were ever accorded such recognition.
One of his proudest moments came when he was appointed a Special Consultant to
the House Committee on Science and Astronautics by Representative Overton Brooks
(D-La.) Chairman of this important group.
"Turner will undertake a special study of the progress being made in the aeronautical
sciences," the official announcement said. "He will also help determine whether
the government agencies have been pushing aeronautical research hard enough since
the advent of the Space Age."
They hadn't forgotten him ... the fellow who flew with the lion.
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