Roscoe Turner, Gilmore the Lion, and the Waxed-Mustache Showman Who Won the Thompson Trophy Three Times

Roscoe Turner was a 1930s air-racing legend who became the only pilot ever to win the Thompson Trophy three times - in 1934, 1938, and 1939. Famous for his self-designed powder-blue uniform, waxed mustache, and a live lion cub named Gilmore that flew with him across the country, Turner backed every ounce of showmanship with genuine flying skill. Beneath the costume was a serious aviator with a strict personal code and a lasting legacy in pilot training.

Who Was Roscoe Turner?

Roscoe Turner was born in Corinth, Mississippi, in 1895. He came from a farming family - no money, no aviation background, nothing that predicted his future in the air. He drove an ambulance during World War I and joined the balloon and aviation service near the end of the conflict.

Like thousands of young men after the war, he returned to a country full of surplus airplanes and little use for the men who flew them. So he barnstormed, flying a war-surplus Curtiss Jenny from town to town, taking farmers up for a few dollars and looping over county fairs.

The difference was his instinct for promotion. Most barnstormers were selling the airplane. Turner was selling himself.

How Roscoe Turner Built His Legendary Image

Turner understood early that 1920s aviation was mostly show business. The public didn’t care about carburetor icing or magneto drops - they cared about spectacle and personality. So he built one.

He designed a sky-blue uniform with gold buttons, a Sam Browne belt, riding breeches, and tall polished boots. He grew a magnificent waxed mustache and gave himself the rank of colonel, to which he initially had no legitimate claim.

He wore the title so convincingly that the Nevada National Guard, and later the state of California, eventually made him an honorary colonel to make it official. Serious pilots rolled their eyes at the costume - but the crowds and sponsors loved him, and the money followed the crowds.

The Story of Gilmore the Flying Lion

In 1930, Turner struck a sponsorship deal with the Gilmore Oil Company of California, whose brand was a roaring red lion. Rather than simply painting a lion on his airplane, Turner acquired a real lion cub, just a few weeks old, and named him Gilmore after the company.

Gilmore began flying with Turner everywhere - coast to coast, from air race to air race. Because the Department of Commerce ruled that any passenger had to wear a parachute, and Gilmore legally counted as a passenger, Turner had a custom parachute harness made for the cub. Photographs survive of the lion sitting in the cockpit in his own rig.

As lions do, Gilmore grew - eventually reaching a couple hundred pounds - and the flying days had to end. But Turner never gave him up. Gilmore lived until 1952, and after the lion’s death Turner had him preserved and kept him for the rest of his own life. Beneath the showbiz, the affection was real.

Why the Thompson Trophy Made Roscoe Turner a Legend

In the 1930s, American air racing had two great prizes. The Bendix Trophy was a cross-country point-to-point speed dash. The Thompson Trophy was the crowd favorite: closed-course pylon racing, with airplanes screaming low around pylons, wingtip to wingtip, right in front of the grandstands.

It was brutally dangerous and it killed pilots - and it was the most exciting sport in the country, drawing hundreds of thousands of spectators to the National Air Races.

Roscoe Turner won the Thompson Trophy three times - in 1934, 1938, and 1939 - the only pilot ever to do so. Pylon racing rewarded pilots willing to fly low, fast, and harder around the pylons than good sense allowed, with another airplane just feet off the wing. The man dismissed as a costume with a mustache kept coming home first.

The Turner RT-14 Meteor: The Airplane Behind the Legend

For his final two Thompson wins, Turner flew the Turner RT-14 Meteor, also known as the Laird-Turner. Built to his specifications, it was a big, powerful, low-wing racer wrapped around a monster of a radial engine - a Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp producing more than 1,000 horsepower.

These racers were unforgiving machines - essentially engines with just enough airframe bolted on to point them in a direction. Their short wings delivered speed but produced vicious stall characteristics and high landing speeds. You didn’t so much fly them as negotiate with them.

The 1937 Race That Revealed His Character

The story that best captures Turner happened at the 1937 Thompson. Flying hard and in the lead, he cut inside a pylon - a violation that required circling back to re-round it properly or face disqualification.

He could have kept going and hoped no one noticed. Instead, he turned around, went back, and re-rounded the pylon correctly. It cost him the race; he finished fourth. Asked about it afterward, he said he’d rather lose honest than win crooked.

That was the real code hidden behind the mustache and the showmanship.

Walking Away and Building a Legacy

Turner also set transcontinental speed records and did stunt flying for Hollywood, becoming the face of American speed flying for a decade. Then, after his third Thompson win in 1939 - still at the top of the sport - he retired from racing.

He had watched too many friends die in an era that chewed up pilots at a terrible rate, and he chose to quit while ahead. But he didn’t leave aviation. He founded the Roscoe Turner Aeronautical Corporation in Indianapolis, a flight school and fixed base operation.

During World War II, that school trained thousands of young men to fly and fed them into the war effort. The showman became a teacher and an institution builder.

The Genuine Article

Later in life, Turner received official military recognition - honorary rank and decorations from the Air Force he’d helped supply with trained pilots. The man who invented his own colonelcy eventually had the country pin the real thing on his chest. He died in 1970, having become exactly what he’d always dressed up as.

His RT-14 Meteor is preserved today at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. Stand beneath it, look at the stubby wings and the brute of an engine, and imagine rounding a pylon in it three feet off another airplane at redline - flown by a man in a powder-blue uniform with a lion waiting back at the hangar.

The lesson endures for every pilot: you can love the romance and spectacle of flight and still be dead serious about the craft. Turner had both - the grin and the discipline, the lion and the code.

Key Takeaways

Roscoe Turner (1895–1970) is the only pilot to win the Thompson Trophy three times, in 1934, 1938, and 1939.
His trademark powder-blue uniform, waxed mustache, and honorary colonel’s rank were deliberate showmanship - but he was a genuinely elite pilot.
Gilmore the Lion, named for the Gilmore Oil Company, flew with Turner in a custom parachute harness and stayed with him for life.
In the 1937 Thompson, Turner sacrificed a winning position to re-round a pylon he had cut, finishing fourth rather than win dishonestly.
After retiring in 1939, he founded a flight school in Indianapolis that trained thousands of pilots during World War II; his RT-14 Meteor hangs in the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.