Biographical Sketches

MILO BURCHAM

Born: May 24, 1903    In: Cadiz, IN
Died: October 20, 1944    In: Burbank, CA

Born in Cadiz, but grew up in Whittier, CA, at that time a Quaker settlement in the eastern Los Angeles basin, Milo Garrett Burcham learned to fly in 1929 at the O’Donnell School of Aviation at Long Beach and became its chief instructor soon afterward.

Much more than just a P-38 test pilot, Burcham unfortunately has never received appropriate recognition because of wartime secrecy. He was an early-bird, with U.S. License 5274, and established a world’s record in December 1933 at Long Beach CA by flying upside-down for 4h:5m:22s in his new Boeing 100, in which he performed acrobatic shows until 1937. He flew a brand-new Lockheed 12A Electra Junior to fifth place in the 1937 Bendix Race from Los Angeles to Cleveland, which was doubly impressive since F C Hall, the plane’s owner, and his wife were aboard, and yet they still came in only a few minutes behind Frank Sinclair in his Seversky racer.

Burcham was hired as a production test pilot by Lockheed in 1938 and because of his extensive experience did most of the test flying on the P-38. He became Chief Engineering Test Pilot for Lockheed, and performed the 55-degree dive from 35,000’ in the P-38. He made the first test flights of the P-80 at Muroc Dry Lake in January 1944 as Lockheed’s Chief Pilot. Killed in the crash of the second YP-80 a few months later, he was twice a victim of World War II -- first it cost him his life, and secondly, because of rigid secrecy then surrounding the P-80, there was no publicity about the accident, his death, or his career. ( -- William T Larkins)

SEE SIDEBAR.

Denotes an individual known to have soloed an aircraft prior to December 16, 1917, whether they were members of the "Early Birds of Aviation" Organization or not.