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

Birth

Bert was born in San Diego, California to Alphonse Ferdinand Acosta and Martha Blanche Snook.

Eduation

He attended the Throop Polytechnic Institute in Pasadena, California from 1912 to 1914.

Early aviation

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; 1915 He went to Canada and worked as an instructor for the R.F.C. and R.N.A.S. in Toronto. In 1917 he was appointed chief instructor, A.S.S.C. at Hazelhurst Field, Long Island.

Marriage

He married Helen Belmont Pearsoll, on August 3, 1921. In 1925 he was Chief Engineer at Colonial Air Lines and was living at 1 Winslow Court, in Naugatuck, Connecticut. He and Helen divorced and Bert later married again. He was caught having an affair and his second wife divorced him.

Endurance record

In April of 1927, he and Clarence 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 Corp. 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 D. Chamberlain and burly Bert Acosta, onetime auto speedster, to test his ship's endurance. Up they put from Mitchell Field, L. L, 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, N. J., 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 cat naps 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 hr., 11 min., 25 sec., did they coast to earth, having broken the U. S. and world's records for pro-traded 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.

Atlantic crossing

On May 13, 1927, 14 days after Charles Lindbergh's record setting crossing of the Atlantic, Bert flew from Long Island to France with Commander Admiral Richard Byrd. The perhaps apocrophyl 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.

Honduras flight

Time wrote on August 17, 1931:

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. Unseen Supercargo Acosta sneaked away; Captain Garay took off, headed for Tegucigalpa, reprimand, glory, or death.

Spanish Civil War

In 1936 he was the head of the Yankee Squadron in the Spanish Civil War with Eddie August Schneider and perhaps 5 others. Bert was living at 46 West 17th Street in New York City when he left for Spain.

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.

Time magazine wrote on January 04, 1937:

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."

Death

In December of 1951 he collapsed in a New York City bar and was hospitalized with tuberculosis. he died in a Colorado sanitorium in 1954 at age 59 and was buried at Pierce Brothers Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood, California.

Timeline

• 1895 Birth
• 1910 Built experimental airplane
• 1912 Starts at Throop Polytechnic Institute
• 1914 Finishes at Throop Polytechnic Institute
• 1921 Marriage to Helen Belmont Pearsoll
• 1927 Endurance record
• 1927 Crosses Atlantic with Admiral Byrd
• 1936 Spanish Civil War
• 1951 Collapse from tuberculosis in New York City
• 1954 Death

Selected coverage in Time magazine

• Time, April 25, 1927, "Paris Preliminaries"
• Time, July 11, 1927, "Four men in a fog"
• Time, February 06, 1928, "Gaol"
• Time, August 17, 1931, "Biggests", Hondouras flight
• Time, June 10, 1935, "Pilot's Pilot", Biography
• Time, September 28, 1936, "Transatlantic Tradition", Pilot crews that hate each other
• Time, December 21, 1936, "Pilots, Death, Plebiscite", Spanish Civil War
• Time, March 25, 1957, "End of the Adventure", Byrd Obituary

Selected coverage in newspapers

• Daily News, Frederick, Maryland, December 03, 1936, "Acosta faces rebels"
• New York Times, New York, September 02, 1954, page 21, Obituary
• New Bridgeport Telegram, Bridgeport, CT, September 02, 1954, Obituary

Reference

• Who's Who in Aeronautics, 1925
• Corbis Photo Archive

External link

• Spanish Civil War Participants
• Early Aviators: Bert Acosta
• Air Mail Pioneers: Bert Acosta
• Pilot Friend: Bert Acosta
• Corbis Photo Archive