Roscoe Turner, the Powder-Blue Showman Who Flew With a Lion Named Gilmore and Won the Thompson Trophy Three Times

Roscoe Turner was a barnstormer-turned-air-racer who became the only pilot ever to win the Thompson Trophy three times (1934, 1938, and 1939). Famous for a self-designed powder-blue uniform and for flying with a pet lion named Gilmore, he paired relentless showmanship with genuine, record-setting speed. Behind the theatrics was one of the fastest and most fearless competitors of aviation’s golden age.

Who Was Roscoe Turner?

Roscoe Turner was born in Corinth, Mississippi, in 1895, in farm country, and learned early that the world rewards the person who stands out from the crowd. He drove an ambulance in the Great War and got his first taste of balloons and airplanes there.

When he came home, he did what many restless young flyers did in the 1920s: he went barnstorming. Wing walking, county fairs, fifty cents to watch and a couple of dollars for a ride. It was a living - barely - but Turner already had bigger plans than the next cow pasture.

Why Did Roscoe Turner Wear a Powder-Blue Uniform?

Turner understood publicity better than almost anyone in aviation. No one ever commissioned him or made him a colonel - he simply decided a famous aviator ought to look the part, and dressed himself accordingly.

He had himself fitted for a powder-blue tunic, whipcord riding breeches, gleaming knee-high boots, and a diamond-studded set of wings. He waxed his mustache to two fine points, pinned on medals, and strode across an airfield like a field marshal.

Rival pilots called him a clown and a self-promoter, and he didn’t care. When Turner climbed out of a cockpit in that rig with the sun catching those diamond wings, every camera and every reporter turned his way - and the paying crowd remembered him. In the racing game, the money followed the attention, and the attention followed the man who gave people a show.

The Story of Gilmore the Flying Lion

Around 1930, Turner landed a sponsorship with the Gilmore Oil Company, whose “Red Lion” gasoline used a lion as its brand. True to form, Turner decided the best way to advertise a lion-branded product was to fly around the country with a real one.

He acquired a lion cub, named him Gilmore after the sponsor, and made him a genuine flying companion for years. Turner even had a custom parachute made for the cat - if he ever had to bail out, the lion was going out the door with him. By some accounts, the pair logged more than 20,000 miles together crisscrossing the country.

Lion cubs don’t stay cubs, and eventually Gilmore grew too big for a cramped racing cockpit. Turner brought him home and cared for him for the rest of his life, into the early 1950s. When Gilmore died, Turner had him preserved, and you can still see him today at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, alongside the story of the man who flew him.

Was Roscoe Turner Actually a Great Pilot?

Absolutely - and this is where the costume and the lion fall away. Turner was one of the fastest men alive, and his trophies were awarded for raw speed and iron nerve, not showmanship.

In the early 1930s he began flying the beautiful, brutal little racers built by the Wedell-Williams outfit in Louisiana, and he started winning. In 1933 he took the Bendix Trophy, the transcontinental dash flown coast to coast against the clock - a contest that demanded the guts to push a hot ship for hours on dead reckoning, a road map, and the seat of the pants.

He set transcontinental records that made front pages, crossing the country in a shade over 10 hours - a figure that stopped people cold in an era with no autopilot, no weather radar, and no navigation aids beyond a compass.

How Many Times Did Roscoe Turner Win the Thompson Trophy?

Turner won the Thompson Trophy three times - 1934, 1938, and 1939 - and remains the only pilot ever to do so. The Thompson was the marquee event: a closed-course race around the pylons, down on the deck, wingtip to wingtip, with turns hard enough to gray out the pilots.

It was the most dangerous and most popular racing there was. Good men died flying it. Turner took his back-to-back 1938 and 1939 wins in a purpose-built pylon ship bearing his own name - the Turner-Laird racer called the Meteor - which he flung around the course at better than 280 miles per hour.

The Extra Lap That Proves His Confidence

The best Turner story comes from the 1938 Thompson. Out front and screaming around the pylons under crushing Gs and deafening noise, he lost count of his laps - and knew that finishing one lap short would cost him everything.

Rather than trust his own arithmetic, Turner made a decision: he flew an extra lap on purpose, giving up time and fuel to be certain. He still won. He was so far ahead that he could afford a bonus lap out of pure caution and still take the trophy home - confidence and airmanship in a single move.

Why Roscoe Turner Mattered to Aviation

The golden age of the National Air Races was where American aviation grew up. The racers Turner and his rivals flew pushed engines, airframes, and fuels to the ragged edge, and those hard-won lessons went straight into the fighters and airliners that followed. When the war came and America needed airplanes that could go fast, turn hard, and take a beating, much of what engineers knew came from men like Turner finding the limits one pylon turn at a time.

Turner gave back, too. He settled in Indianapolis, ran a flying school and an aviation business, and spent his later years teaching young people to fly. Fittingly, the state of Indiana eventually made him a real colonel in its National Guard - so the uniform he’d invented for pure showbiz, he came to wear by right.

He died in 1970, never having stopped believing that flying should thrill you - that it should make a kid on the ground look up and decide that someday, that would be him. For Turner, a great pilot and a great story were never two different things. They were the same thing.

Key Takeaways

Roscoe Turner (1895–1970) rose from barnstorming to become one of the golden age’s greatest air racers, blending showmanship with elite skill.
He is the only pilot ever to win the Thompson Trophy three times, in 1934, 1938, and 1939, and won the Bendix Trophy in 1933.
His pet lion Gilmore flew with him for roughly 20,000 miles and is preserved today at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
In the 1938 Thompson, Turner flew a deliberate extra lap to avoid a miscount - and still won, proving his commanding margin.
Innovations forged in pylon racing fed directly into the military and airline aircraft that followed, making Turner more than a colorful footnote.