Bertrand Blanchard Acosta

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Bertrand Blanchard Acosta

Acosta circa 1927
Born January 1, 1895(1895-01-01)
San Diego, California
Died September 1, 1954 (aged 59)
Denver, Colorado
Burial place Portal of Folded Wings
Nationality American
Education Throop Polytechnic Institute
Occupation Aviator
Spouse Helen Belmont Pearsoll
Children Allan Acosta
Bert Acosta, Jr.
Parents Miguel Acosta
Martha Blanche Reilly

Bertrand Blanchard Acosta (January 1, 1895 – September 1, 1954) was an aviator who flew in the Spanish Civil War in the Yankee Squadron.[1] He was known as the Bad Boy of the Air, and was a heavy drinker. He was divorced twice and received numerous fines and suspensions for flying stunts such as flying under bridges or flying too close to buildings.[2]

Contents

[edit] Birth

Acosta was born in San Diego, California to Miguel Acosta and Martha Blanche Reilly.[3] He attended the Throop Polytechnic Institute in Pasadena, California from 1912 to 1914.[4]

He taught himself to fly in August of 1910 and built experimental airplanes up until 1912 when he began work for Glenn Curtiss as an apprentice on a hydroplane project. In 1915 he worked as a flying instructor. He went to Canada and worked as an instructor for the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service in Toronto. In 1917 he was appointed chief instructor, Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps at Hazelhurst Field, Long Island.

Acosta was married in 1918 but he divorced his first wife in 1920. He won The Pulitzer Trophy Race in 1921, then married Helen Belmont Pearsoll, on August 3, 1921. In 1925 he was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and was living at 1 Winslow Court in Naugatuck, Connecticut. He and Helen separated but they never divorced.

[edit] Endurance record

In April of 1927, he and Clarence D. Chamberlin set an endurance record of 51 hours, 11 minutes, and 25 seconds in the air. Time magazine reported on April 25, 1927:

Engineer Giuseppe M. Bellanca of the Columbia Aircraft Corporation had conditioned an elderly yellow-winged monoplane with one Wright motor, and scouted around for pilots. Lieut. Leigh Wade, round-the-world flyer, declined the invitation, saying Mr. Bellanca's plans were too stunt-like, not scientific. Shrugging, Mr. Bellanca engaged Pilots Clarence Duncan Chamberlin and burly Bert Acosta, onetime auto speedster, to test his ship's endurance. Up they put from Mitchel Field, Long Island, with 385 gallons of ethylated (high power) gasoline. All day they droned back and forth over suburbia, circled the Woolworth Building, hovered over Hadley Field, New Jersey, swung back to drop notes on Mitchell Field. All that starry night they wandered slowly around the sky, and all the next day, and through the next night, a muggy, cloudy one. Newsgatherers flew up alongside to shout unintelligible things through megaphones. Messrs. Acosta and Chamberlain were looking tired and oil-blobbed. They swallowed soup and sandwiches, caught catnaps on the mattressed fuel tank, while on and on they droned, almost lazily (about 80 m.p.h.) for they were cruising against time. Not for 51 hours, 11 minutes, 25 seconds, did they coast to earth, having broken the U.S. and world's records for protracted flight. In the same time, conditions favoring, they could have flown from Manhattan to Vienna. They had covered 4,100 miles. To Paris it is 3,600 miles from Manhattan. Jubilant, Engineer Bellanca's employers offered competitors a three-hour headstart in the race to Paris. The Bellanca monoplane's normal cruising speed is 110 m.p.h. She would require only some 35 hours to reach Paris—if she could stay up that long again.[5]

[edit] Transatlantic flight

On May 13, 1927, fourteen days after Charles Lindbergh's record setting transatlantic flight, Acosta flew from Long Island to France with Commander Admiral Richard Byrd aboard the America.[6] The perhaps apocryphal story was that Byrd had to hit Acosta over the head with a fire extinguisher or a flashlight when he got out of control from drinking during their flight.[7]

[edit] Bad Boy

In 1928 Connecticut suspended his pilot license for trying to fly under a bridge in Naugatuck. In 1929 he was fined $500 for low flying and stunting in the same. When he failed to pay the fine, the Department of Commerce revoked his pilot license. He was arrested by Connecticut State troopers in 1930 for flying without a license.[7][8] In 1931 with Captain Lisandro Garay of the Honduran Air Force he planned to fly from New York to Honduras . They left from Floyd Bennett Field and loaded their Bellanca monoplane with 360 gallons of gasoline to make a test flight, Bert disappeared and never made the flight.[9]

[edit] Spanish Civil War

In 1936 Acosta was head of the Yankee Squadron in the Spanish Civil War with Eddie August Schneider and Frederic Ives Lord.[10][11]

Time magazine wrote on December 21, 1936:

Hilariously celebrating in the ship's bar of the Normandie with their first advance pay checks from Spain's Radical Government, six able U.S. aviators were en route last week for Madrid to join Bert Acosta, pilot of Admiral Byrd's transatlantic flight, in doing battle against Generalissimo Francisco Franco's White planes. Payment for their services: $1,500 a month plus $1,000 for each White plane brought down.[12]

Time magazine wrote on January 4, 1937, although the attack was later determined to be propaganda:

On Christmas Eve the "Yankee Squadron" of famed U.S. aviators headed by Bert Acosta, pilot of Admiral Byrd's transatlantic flight, at the last minute abandoned plans for a whoopee party with their wives at Biarritz, swank French resort across the Spanish frontier. They decided that they would rather raid Burgos, Generalissimo Franco's headquarters. The hundreds of incendiary bombs that they dropped on White hangars and munition dumps they jokingly described as "Messages of Christmas Cheer for the boys in Burgos."[13]

[edit] Death

In December of 1951 Acosta collapsed in a New York City bar and was hospitalized with tuberculosis. He died at the Jewish Consumptive's Relief Society sanatorium in Colorado in 1954.[14][15][2] He was buried in the Portal of Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation.

[edit] See also

[edit] Timeline

[edit] References

  1. ^ "4 Americans in Spain to Fly for Madrid. Acosta and Three Mates Reach Valencia to Take Course in Military Aviation.", New York Times, November 21, 1936, Saturday. Retrieved on 2007-09-25. "Bert Acosta, one of this country's leading racing pilots, and four other fliers from fields in the Newark district have arrived at Valencia, Spain, where they will go through a hurried course in military flying before taking the air against the Rebels, it was revealed here yesterday." 
  2. ^ a b "Died.", Time, Monday, September 13, 1954. Retrieved on 2007-09-25. "Bert Acosta, 59, pilot of the historic multi-engined flight across the Atlantic (1927) with Admiral Richard E. Byrd and Bernt Balchen; of tuberculosis; in Denver. At 14 (in 1910), Acosta built and flew his own plane, went on to establish a world's speed record (176.7 m.p.h.) at 26 and endurance record (51 hr. 11 min. 25 sec.) at 32; in later life, despite hard times and family problems, wound up with a legendary reputation for skillful piloting and artful risk-taking (e.g., he once buzzed Manhattan's Metropolitan Life tower to see what time it was)." 
  3. ^ Bertrand Blanchard Acosta's mother had a half-brother with the surname of Snook.
  4. ^ Bertrand Blanchard Acosta. Early Aviators. Retrieved on 2007-09-25. “Taught self to fly, August 1910; built experimental planes and continued personal research until 1912; joined Glenn H. Curtiss as apprentice assisting in developing land and hydroplanes; instructed in flying; 1915. became instructor of R.F.C. and R.N.A.S. at Toronto, Canada; trained many of the first overseas contingent and continued this work for two years; 1916-1917, made chief instructor, A.S.S.C. at Hazelhurst Field, L. I.; 1918, director of flying, testing and consulting aeronautical engineer as assistant to Col. E. J. Hall, Bureau of Aircraft Production; appointed Captain, A.S. (reserve); after armistice until 1923, chief test pilot and consultant, Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Corp., J. L. Aircraft., Netherlands Aircraft Co., Remington Burnelli, Corp. Wright Aeronautical Corp., Bee Line Co., and various other companies and individuals; experience covers practically every type of plane, land, hydroplanes and flying boats; first pilot in this country to attain speed of 200 miles per hour; 1920, third place, First Pulitzer Trophy Race; first place, Second Pulitzer Trophy Race; made first transcontinental round trip.”
  5. ^ "Paris Preliminaries", Time, April 25, 1927. Retrieved on 2007-09-25. "Engineer Giuseppe M. Bellanca of the Columbia Aircraft Corporation had conditioned an elderly yellow-winged monoplane with one Wright motor, and scouted around for pilots. Lieut. Leigh Wade, round-the-world flyer, declined the invitation, saying Mr. Bellanca's plans were too stunt-like, not scientific." 
  6. ^ Check-Six.com - The Ditching of the 'America'
  7. ^ a b "Pilot's Pilot", Time, Monday, June 10, 1935. Retrieved on 2007-09-25. "Long before anyone ever heard of Lindbergh, Chamberlin, Post or Earhart, one of aviation's big names was Bert Acosta. Famed as a 'natural' among pilots, he probably had a greater talent for flying than any man before or since. But like many another early barnstormer and stunter, he took to the fleshpots on earth as an offset to his work in the air. His life, consequently, became a rowdy romance in which brawls, jails and domestic entanglements were due to play a large part." 
  8. ^ "Bert Acosta Freed In Connecticut Case. Two-Year-Old Charge For Stunt Flying At Naugatuck Dropped By Waterbury Prosecutor. Pilot Promises To Behave His Air Record Wins Leniency, But He Faces Federal Inquiry On Flight Without License.", New York Times, September 19, 1930. Retrieved on 2007-09-25. "Waterbury, Connecticut; September 18, 1930; (Associated Press). Bert Acosta, transatlantic flier, who was arrested in Wilton last night after he had landed his plane in a meadow, received a nolle today in ..." 
  9. ^ "Biggests", Time, August 17, 1931. Retrieved on 2007-09-25. "Captain Lisandro Garay of the Honduran Air Force last week at Floyd Bennett Field loaded a Bellanca monoplane with 360 gallons [of] gasoline and Bert Acosta 'to make a test flight' from New York to Honduras. Acosta sneaked away; Captain Garay took off, headed for Tegucigalpa, reprimand, glory, or death." 
  10. ^ Bertrand Blanchard Acosta had been living at 46 West 17th Street in New York City before leaving for Spain.
  11. ^ "3 U.S. Airmen Here to Explain Aid to Loyalists; Acosta, Berry, Schneider Fly to Capital With Their Attorney.", Washington Post, January 20, 1937. Retrieved on 2007-08-21. "... Apparently none the worse for the wear and tear of the bitter civil conflict, now in its sixth month, the trio who quit because 'it would be suicide to continue' and because their actions 'might not be in tune with the spirit of neutrality', talked freely with newsmen about the reasons that motivated their enlistment. 'I was broke, hungry, jobless,' 25-year-old Schneider, who is married and has a family in New York, said. 'Yet despite the fact that all three of us are old-time aviators who did our part for the development of the industry were left out in the cold in the Administration’s program of job making. Can you blame us for accepting the lucrative Spanish offer?' While other airmen – British and French – were afforded a two-week courtesy for training, American fliers were just shown to loyalist hangars, given a plane and ordered to do their stuff. 'We were flying old crates,' Acosta said, 'while other nationalists were given modern ships. But for the protection afforded us by Soviet pursuit planes we would not be alive now to tell you this tale.'" 
  12. ^ "Pilots, Death, Plebiscite", Time, December 21, 1936. Retrieved on 2007-08-21. "Hilariously celebrating in the ship's bar of the Normandie with their first advance pay checks from Spain's Radical Government, six able U.S. aviators were en route last week for Madrid to join Bert Acosta, pilot of Admiral Byrd's transatlantic flight, in doing battle against Generalissimo Francisco Franco's White planes. Payment for their services: $1,500 a month plus $1,000 for each White plane brought down." 
  13. ^ "Uneasy Christmas", Time, January 4, 1937. Retrieved on 2007-09-25. "On Christmas Eve the "Yankee Squadron" of famed U. S. aviators headed by Bert Acosta, pilot of Admiral Byrd's transatlantic flight, at the last minute abandoned plans for a whoopee party with their wives at Biarritz, swank French resort across the Spanish frontier. They decided that they would rather raid Burgos, Generalissimo Franco's headquarters. The hundreds of incendiary bombs that they dropped on White hangars and munition dumps they jokingly described as "Messages of Christmas Cheer for the boys in Burgos." 
  14. ^ "Bert Acosta 59, A Veteran Flier; Piloted Plane With Byrd and Balchen Across Atlantic in 1927, Dead in Denver.", New York Times, September 2, 1954. Retrieved on 2007-09-25. 
  15. ^ "Bert Acosta, Atlantic Flier, Dies.", Washington Post, September 2, 1954. Retrieved on 2007-09-25. "Bert B. Acosta, spectacular barnstorming pilot who, with Admiral Richard E. Byrd, made the first trans-Atlantic flight in a multi-engined plane, died yesterday from advanced tuberculosis in a Denver sanatorium, the Associated Press reported." 

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Preceded by
Clarence Duncan Chamberlin		 Transatlantic flight
1927		 Succeeded by
James Fitzmaurice
v • d • e
Aviation Hall of Fame of New Jersey

Amelia Earhart (1973) • Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1973) • Floyd Bennett (1973) • Clarence Duncan Chamberlin (1973) • Clyde Pangborn (1973) • Wittemann brothers (1973) • Anthony Fokker (1974) • Juan Terry Trippe (1975) • Bert Blanchard Acosta (1976) • Arthur Godfrey (1976) • Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Jr. (1980) • Boland brothers (1980) • Charles Emery Rosendahl (1980) • Gill Robb Wilson (1980) • Robert Nietzel Buck (1981) • Walter M. Schirra (1982) • Robert J. Collier (1984) • Malcolm S. Forbes (1985) • Kathryn Dwyer Sullivan (1987) • Oliver George Simmons (1987) • William Halsey, Jr. (1988) • Frederick Walker Castle (1988) • Charles J. Fletcher (1989) • Jean-Pierre Blanchard (1993) • Vincent Justus Burnelli (1996) • Kenneth A. Walsh (1996) • Richard Evelyn Byrd (1998) • Terry Jonathan Hart (1999) • Oliver Colin LeBoutillier (2002) •
v • d • e
Portal of the Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation

John Bevins Moisant (1868-1910) • Walter Richard Brookins (1889-1953) • Bertrand Blanchard Acosta (1895-1954) • James Floyd Smith (1884-1956) • Charles Edward Taylor (1868-1956) • Winfield Bertrum Kinner (1882-1957) • Elizabeth Lippincott McQueen (1878-1958) • Augustus Roy Knabenshue (1876-1960) • John F. B. Carruthers (1889–1960) • Mark M. Campbell (1897-1963) • Matilde E. Moisant (1878-1964) • Warren Samuel Eaton (1891-1966) • Carl B. Squier (1893-1967) • Hilder Florentina Smith (1890-1977) •
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