He was born in Cadiz, Indiana, but grew up in Whittier, California in the eastern Los Angeles basin. Burcham sold burglar alarms[?] of his own design to finance flying lessons from the O'Donnell School of Aviation[?] in Long Beach, California, where he became chief instructor. In 1933, he set numerous upside down flight endurance records[?] that were broken much later by Joann Osterud[?]. He flew his Boeing 100 to the World's Aerobatic Championship in 1936. In 1941 he joined Lockheed and rose to the position of Chief Pilot a few years later. Burcham was killed in the flame out take off of a production prototype P-80 Shooting Star, America's first production jet fighter[?]. He is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California. His grandson and namesake, is a well-known nature photographer and wildlife biologist.
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump