Roscoe Turner, the Red Lion, and the Waxed-Mustache Showman Who Flew a Pet Lion Cub Around the Pylons at Cleveland

Roscoe Turner was a 1930s American air racing star who flew a live lion cub named Gilmore as his copilot and won the prestigious Thompson Trophy three times - in 1934, 1938, and 1939 - a record no other pilot has ever matched. A flamboyant showman in a self-designed powder-blue uniform and waxed mustache, Turner backed up his flash with genuine skill, retiring undefeated at the top of the sport. Both Turner’s legacy and his mounted lion are preserved today at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

Who Was Roscoe Turner?

In the 1930s, when the entire country stopped every Labor Day to watch airplanes tear around pylons at Cleveland, Roscoe Turner was the biggest star in the sky.

Turner understood something most great pilots of his era never grasped: flying was a show. He dressed for it, wearing a uniform he designed himself - powder blue, with whipcord riding breeches, mirror-polished boots, a tunic trimmed in enough gold to embarrass a general, and a diamond-studded pin. He waxed his mustache into two perfect points.

He called himself Colonel Turner, though the rank was generously self-awarded. He had a booming voice, a Mississippi drawl, and no shame whatsoever. Newsreel cameras loved him, little boys wanted to be him, and sponsors could not get enough of him.

What Were the National Air Races at Cleveland?

Over Labor Day weekend, the National Air Races in Cleveland, Ohio drew crowds in the hundreds of thousands - grandstands packed shoulder to shoulder, a spectacle that would make any modern airshow promoter weep with envy.

Out on the field, a course was marked by pylons - tall poles with painted markers on top, staked out in a rough oval, low over the ground. Pilots came screaming around them at full throttle, banked so steeply the wingtip looked like it was carving a groove in the grass. Down low, loud, and close enough that the crowd could see the pilot’s face.

The premier event was the Thompson Trophy: a closed course, unlimited horsepower, winner take all. It was the fastest, most dangerous flying anyone could pay a nickel to watch. Men died doing it, and everyone knew it - which was part of why the grandstands were full.

The Story Behind Gilmore the Flying Lion

In the early 1930s, Turner landed a sponsorship with the Gilmore Oil Company of California. Their brand was the Red Lion, and their slogan was “Roar with Gilmore.” They painted a big red lion on the side of Turner’s airplane and paid his bills.

But a painted lion wasn’t enough for Turner. He acquired a real lion cub, named him Gilmore after the sponsor, and made him his copilot.

Consider what that meant. Cockpits of the era were open to the wind or barely enclosed - cramped, loud, and oil-spattered. Turner climbed in with a lion cub that grew larger every month, strapped the animal into a seat behind him, and took off.

He even had a custom parachute made for the lion, insisting that if he ever had to bail out, he would not leave Gilmore behind. A surviving photograph shows the lion in his little harness and chute, looking as though he’d done it a hundred times - and he nearly had. Gilmore reportedly flew tens of thousands of miles, coast to coast, and Turner would parade him on a leash at every landing while newspapers went wild.

There’s even a story that Turner tried to insure the lion and got tangled up over whether an airborne lion counted as cargo or crew - the kind of problem only Roscoe Turner would have.

Eventually Gilmore grew too big and strong to keep flying, and Turner retired him. But he didn’t sell the lion off to a zoo. He cared for Gilmore for years, and when the lion died of old age, Turner had him mounted and preserved, keeping him for the rest of his own life.

The Airplanes: Wedell-Williams Racers and the Turner Meteor

Turner was no mere mustache and swagger - the man could genuinely fly, and the airplanes prove it.

In his early racing years, he flew a series of Wedell-Williams racers, beautiful and brutal little airplanes built in Louisiana by a self-taught genius named Jimmy Wedell, who reportedly couldn’t see out of one eye yet built some of the fastest aircraft in the world by feel and instinct. They were little more than a big radial engine with a seat bolted behind it and just enough low wing to keep it honest.

In 1933, Turner won the Bendix Trophy in one of them. The Bendix was the cross-country race - coast to coast, a test of speed, navigation, and raw nerve, often flying at night and low on fuel.

For his last two Thompson wins, Turner flew an airplane built partly to his own ideas: the Turner Meteor, sometimes called the Laird-Turner after builder Matty Laird, who worked on the early design before the two men fell out. Officially, it was the RT-14 Meteor.

It was big for a racer - a barrel of an airplane in Turner’s colors, with a monstrous 14-cylinder radial engine putting out around 1,000 horsepower. When it lit off, it hammered; you felt it in your chest before you heard it in your ears.

What Made Pylon Racing So Dangerous?

Pylon racing was nothing like ordinary flying. Pilots flew treetop-low, hauling the airplane around a pole in a bank so steep they were practically standing on a wingtip.

The g-forces dragged the blood from your head and grayed out your peripheral vision - all at roughly 300 miles per hour, with the ground close enough to touch and other airplanes doing the same thing a few feet off your wing. Cut a pylon too tight and you snapped a wing into the ground; cut it too wide and you handed the race to the man behind you.

Through all of it, pilots managed engines running at the ragged edge of failure, praying they held together for a few more laps. That is where Turner earned his reputation - not on the parade ground, but on the course.

He was not the smoothest stick-and-rudder pilot of his generation, and he’d probably have admitted it. But nobody wanted it more, and nobody managed the whole package - airplane, engine, strategy, and nerve - better. He knew exactly how hard he could push, and he held it right there, lap after lap.

Why Roscoe Turner’s Record Still Stands

Turner won the Thompson Trophy three times - in 1934, 1938, and 1939. No other pilot has ever won that race three times.

Then, after crossing the finish line for that final 1939 win, he did something almost unheard of at the top of the sport: he quit. He walked away undefeated in the event that mattered most to him and never returned to racing.

That discipline is rare. Most great racers stay a season too long, chasing one more trophy until the odds catch up with them. Turner - the showman everyone underestimated - knew when the show was over and got out with his record perfect and his skin intact.

He spent the rest of his life in aviation the sensible way: running a flying school and an airport, and building a business in Indianapolis. He became an elder statesman of the sport he’d helped make famous, and he lived a good long life, passing away in 1970.

Where to See Roscoe Turner and Gilmore Today

You can still visit both of them. Roscoe Turner’s records and story are preserved by the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum - and so is Gilmore, the actual lion, mounted and preserved the way Turner kept him.

That flying lion outlived the golden age of air racing and outlived his owner, yet he’s still here, keeping company with the history of American flight. In a world always trying to make everything sensible, safe, and quiet, someone decided it was worth saving the lion that flew.

Turner never apologized for wanting to be seen. He turned a deadly sport into a spectacle that put airplanes on the front page and made a whole country look up - and he backed every ounce of swagger with three Thompson trophies no one else ever matched.

Key Takeaways

• Roscoe Turner was the most famous American air racer of the 1930s, known for his self-designed powder-blue uniform, waxed mustache, and self-awarded “Colonel” title.
• He flew a real lion cub named Gilmore, sponsored by the Gilmore Oil Company (“Roar with Gilmore”), complete with a custom-made parachute for the animal.
• Turner won the Thompson Trophy three times - 1934, 1938, and 1939 - a record no other pilot has ever matched.
• He won the Bendix Trophy in 1933 flying a Wedell-Williams racer, and took his later Thompson wins in the RT-14 “Turner Meteor,” powered by a roughly 1,000-horsepower, 14-cylinder radial.
• Turner retired from racing undefeated in 1939, died in 1970, and both he and the preserved lion Gilmore are now honored at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.