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Roscoe Turner

"My interests in aviation began as a child. We were farmers, you know. I was always flying kites and even tried to do some experiments with getting off the ground hanging onto a kite pulled by one of our mules. Some mule."

Some kite.

Roscoe Turner has been the Mercury of speed in American—-and indeed, world aviation. He has been a phenomenal showman, as well. "I have always thought that speed should be synonymous with flight." Records prove his point:

"The only three-time winner of the famed Thompson Trophy Race, winner of the Bendix Trophy, the man who has sliced more Transcontinental records than any other, the sponsor and commander of the only U.S. team to finish in the McRobertson International Air Race from London to Melbourne, Australia-—a 1934 feat that even astonished Roscoe.

He was one of the founders of our nation's great Civil Air Patrol, operator of the nation's first commercial air field in Richmond, Va. (1927), and operator of the world's first high-speed airline, between Los Angeles and Reno.

"In January, 1932, Wedell and I put our heads together for the design of a 300 mile per hour plane. The industry thought we were nuts, talking speed like that. One manufacturer after another discouraged us." On a quiet September day in 1933, James Wedell established a speed record of 305 mph over Glenview, Ill.

[[image - small drawing of a propeller]]

Roscoe Turner: born Cornith, Mississippi, September 29, 1895.

[[image No. 129 - black & white photograph of Roscoe Turner with his lion cub]]

[[image No. 130 - drawing of the Turner family crest]]

[[image No. 131- black & white photograph of a smiling Roscoe Turner]]

[[caption]]Part of Turner's charming flamboyance was the lion club Gilmore, which Turner kept in Indianapolis cage (129) when the cat reached adulthood. Lions are a part of Turner family crest(130), and Smilin' Jack disposition was always a part of the King of Racers.[[/caption]]

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