Roscoe Turner, the Lion in the Cockpit, and the Three Thompson Trophies That Made the Most Outrageous Racer of the Golden Age

Roscoe Turner won the Thompson Trophy three times - in 1934, 1938, and 1939 - more than any other pilot in the history of the National Air Races. He accomplished it in powder-blue uniforms, with a lion riding in the cockpit, flying some of the most beautiful racing aircraft ever built. No pilot of the golden age combined that level of competitive dominance with that degree of public spectacle.

What Were the National Air Races?

The golden age of aviation ran roughly from the early 1920s through 1939. After the First World War, surplus biplanes flooded the market, barnstormers crossed the country, and the public developed an appetite for aviation that was unlike anything before or since.

The National Air Races were the centerpiece of that era. Running from the late 1920s through 1939, they drew hundreds of thousands of spectators to fence lines at municipal airports. The Thompson Trophy was the marquee event - a closed-course pylon race around a roughly ten-mile circuit, with 50-foot pylons staked at the corners.

Winning the Thompson required a purpose-built aircraft. Stock airplanes had no chance. Builders worked in small shops with tight budgets, designing low-wing monoplanes with tight-cowled radial engines and landing gear trimmed to the absolute minimum drag. When a line of those aircraft came around a pylon at full throttle, fifty feet off the ground at over 200 mph, the ground shook and the air pressure changed as they passed overhead.

Men died at these races - not occasionally, but regularly. The aircraft pushed materials beyond what was proven. The pilots pushed themselves beyond what was safe. Everyone involved knew it. The golden age was not careful.

Who Was Roscoe Turner?

Roscoe Turner was born on September 29, 1895, in Corinth, Mississippi. He drove horses and buggies as a young man, worked whatever work he could find, and entered the First World War as an ambulance driver in France before the United States formally joined. He saw aircraft over the trenches and decided he needed to fly them.

After the war, Turner barnstormed the county fair circuit through the mid-1920s. He flew locals at a dollar a ride, navigated by railroad tracks and the sun, and fueled from hand-pumped drums in farm fields. He crossed the country multiple times, building the judgment that would later win him three trophies.

What separated Turner from other barnstormers was a clear-eyed understanding of what crowds actually wanted. They didn’t come just to see an airplane. They came to see a personality - someone to root for, someone to remember.

The Uniform That Defined a Career

Turner designed a powder-blue military-style tunic with gold braid on the sleeves, epaulettes on the shoulders, a Sam Browne belt, and a chest full of ribbons and wings. He kept a mustache waxed to a precise point. He stood ramrod straight. He looked like central casting’s idea of what a pilot ought to be.

The public found it absurd. Turner did not care. He told the press that aviators deserved to be recognized as professionals and that the uniform was for the industry. Whatever he believed privately, he understood something that most people learn too late: you dress the part before anyone else will cast you in it.

Gilmore the Lion and the Gilmore Oil Sponsorship

In 1930, Gilmore Oil Company of California became his sponsor. Their mascot was a lion. Turner acquired a live lion cub and named him Gilmore.

Gilmore flew cross-country with Turner, fitted with a custom leather harness and a parachute - because in Turner’s view, everyone on the airplane deserved a fair shot if something went wrong. At every fuel stop, Turner would taxi in, Gilmore would put his front paws on the wing, and within sixty seconds people appeared from every direction. Turner worked every stop as a public event.

The California Humane Society eventually ended the arrangement, but by then Turner had accomplished what he set out to do: he was the most talked-about pilot in the country.

The 1934 Thompson Trophy: Wedell-Williams Model 44

Turner’s first Thompson Trophy win came in 1934. He flew the Wedell-Williams Model 44, designed by Jimmy Wedell, a self-taught engineer from Louisiana. The Model 44 was a lean, low-wing aircraft cowled tightly around a Pratt & Whitney Wasp Senior engine.

Turner averaged 248 mph around the pylon course - around pylons, at low level, in an era with no GPS and no margin for error.

The field was deep and the margins were thin. What Turner had beyond speed was tactical intelligence. He knew where to tighten a turn and where to let the engine breathe. He knew when to nurse the aircraft and when to drive it.

Jimmy Wedell died the following year, 1935, at age 33 - a stall on approach during a routine flight in Louisiana. He had built the fastest closed-course racer in the country and never reached thirty-four.

Building the Turner-Laird Meteor

By the mid-1930s Turner recognized that the Wedell-Williams design was showing its age. He went to Matty Laird - one of the founding figures of American aircraft manufacturing - with precise requirements: more power, a cleaner airframe, and better cockpit visibility for low-level pylon turns.

The Turner-Laird Meteor was finished in gold and red, Turner’s personal colors. It was a low-wing monoplane with retractable gear, a tight cowling wrapped around a Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp Junior producing just over 1,000 horsepower, turning a three-bladed Hamilton Standard propeller. Other racers looked purposeful. The Meteor looked like someone’s dream about going fast, given form and painted gold.

In 1937, Turner brought the Meteor to Cleveland for the first time and finished second. He and Laird spent the following winter going over every inch of the airframe, looking for drag to eliminate and power to find.

The 1938 and 1939 Thompson Trophy Wins

In 1938, Turner won the Thompson Trophy in the Meteor at 283 mph. He was 42 years old. The crowd gave him a standing ovation before he had even climbed out of the cockpit.

He came back in 1939. At 43, he was genuinely old for the sport - air racing consumed the young and the careless in roughly equal measure. What Turner had instead was something no money could buy: three decades of demanding flight time, combined with a machine that was still faster than almost anything on the course.

The 1939 National Air Races ran in early September, just days after Germany had invaded Poland and the world had begun its slide toward the Second World War. In Cleveland that week, the crowds were still there - 50,000 spectators along the fence lines, the grandstands packed in tight. One more week of the golden age, though nobody knew it at the time.

Turner won at 282 mph. Three Thompson Trophies - more than any other pilot in the race’s history.

He announced his retirement from competitive racing on the victory stand, right there in front of the crowd. He said he had proved what he came to prove, and had nothing left to win - and, more to the point, nothing left to risk.

The End of an Era

The National Air Races were suspended in 1940. The racing aircraft were grounded or pressed into other service. The pilots scattered - some into combat, some into training commands.

Turner went to Indianapolis and opened the Roscoe Turner Aeronautical Corporation, a flight school that spent the war years training hundreds of Army Air Forces pilots. The showman became a teacher. The racer became the man who built the next generation.

When the races eventually resumed, the jet age had redefined what fast meant. The piston racers were still beautiful, but the era Turner had dominated was closed.

Roscoe Turner died in June 1970, at age 74. He had lived to see the jet age, the sound barrier, and the moon landing. He had his trophies, his photographs, and the memory of a lion in a leather harness, front paws on the cockpit coaming, looking out over a very distant ground.

Why It Matters

Turner understood something that gets lost in the technical history of the 1930s: aviation needed witnesses. The sport did not exist in isolation. It existed in front of the crowds at Cleveland, and those crowds kept coming back because there were personalities worth watching. Turner was the most watchable of all of them.

He was the most serious competitor on the ramp, in the most recognizable uniform, flying the most beautiful aircraft, and winning more than anyone else. That combination of competitive excellence and public presence didn’t just win races - it built the audience that funded and sustained the entire golden age.

Key Takeaways

Roscoe Turner won the Thompson Trophy three times - 1934, 1938, and 1939 - the most wins of any pilot in the race’s history
His 1934 win in the Wedell-Williams Model 44 came at 248 mph; his 1938 and 1939 wins in the Turner-Laird Meteor came at 283 mph and 282 mph respectively
Turner flew cross-country with a live lion named Gilmore, sponsored by Gilmore Oil Company, turning every fuel stop into a public spectacle
The National Air Races were suspended in 1940 following the outbreak of the Second World War and never returned to their pre-war form
Turner retired on the victory stand in 1939 and later opened the Roscoe Turner Aeronautical Corporation in Indianapolis, training hundreds of military pilots during the war