04/09/2024
From time to time we will be sharing stories about Patterson's rich aviation and industrial history, to showcase some of the personalities and events to be found in Wedell-Williams Aviation and Cypress Sawmill Museum. This is the first installment in this series. We hope you enjoy it, and will join us for future installments!
In April of 1932, Jimmie Wedell was testing a plane for Roscoe Turner, a very flamboyant and very successful aviator. Turner had been impressed with Wedell-Williams' racing planes, and decided he wanted one for himself. Harry Williams had apparently blown Turner off at first, saying that he and Jimmie were too busy with their own racers to build a customer plane. However, he said Turner and his mechanic could ask Jimmie for the prints and they could build it themselves if they desired. So Turner dutifully asked Jimmie for the blueprints, only to discover that Jimmie didn't actually use blueprints to build his planes--he simply designed everything by eye and the only prints for a design existed in his mind. So, at a bit of a loss, Turner's mechanic would simply watch Jimmie as he built and copy what he was doing, and eventually Turner's We-Will racer came into being.
Jimmie himself got involved with Turner's racer when it came time for testing. However, what was meant to be a routine testing flight suddenly became much more dramatic, and with much higher stakes. Jimmie, situated in the cockpit with some lead shot (to simulate the much taller and heavier Turner), was taking the plane for a flight over the fields of Patterson. Suddenly, at close to 300mph and at very low altitude, the plane lost a wing. Jimmie managed to gain some altitude, bailed out by breaking the cockpit window with the lead shot, and landed safely on the ground as the plane exploded into the dirt behind him. Jimmie was unharmed, having lost only one of his shoes. Harry Williams, having watched the ordeal, presumably with his heart in his throat, pounded Jimmie on the back and shouted "That was the finest piece of flying in the history of aviation! Jimmie knows more about the fourth dimension than Einstein!"
Turner's racer was eventually rebuilt and he went on to enjoy great success with Wedell-Williams, though nothing quite compared to the drama of that first test flight!
Pictured: Jimmie Wedell with the wreckage of Roscoe Turner's We-Will racer, courtesy of Louisiana State Museum.
