Bertrand Blanchard Acosta (January 1, 1895 – September 1, 1954) was a record-setting aviator and

test pilot A test pilot is an aircraft pilot with additional training to fly and evaluate experimental, newly produced and modified aircraft with specific maneuvers, known as flight test techniques.Stinton, Darrol. ''Flying Qualities and Flight Testing ...

. He and Clarence D. Chamberlin set an endurance record of 51 hours, 11 minutes, and 25 seconds in the air. He later flew in the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, link ...

in the Yankee Squadron. He was known as the "bad boy of the air". He received numerous fines and suspensions for flying stunts such as flying under bridges or flying too close to buildings.

Early life

Acosta was born in

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...

to Miguel Aphonse Ferdinand Acosta and Martha Blanche Reilly-Snook. He attended the

Throop Polytechnic Institute The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. Its ...

from 1912 to 1914. He taught himself to fly in August 1910 and built experimental airplanes up until 1912 when he began work for

Glenn Curtiss Glenn Hammond Curtiss (May 21, 1878 – July 23, 1930) was an American aviation and motorcycling pioneer, and a founder of the U.S. aircraft industry. He began his career as a bicycle racer and builder before moving on to motorcycles. As early a ...

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 "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colors = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = , decorations ...

and

Royal Naval Air Service The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) was the air arm of the Royal Navy, under the direction of the Admiralty's Air Department, and existed formally from 1 July 1914 to 1 April 1918, when it was merged with the British Army's Royal Flying Corps t ...

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anchor ...

. In 1917 he was appointed chief instructor,

Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps The Aviation Section, Signal Corps, was the aerial warfare service of the United States from 1914 to 1918, and a direct statutory ancestor of the United States Air Force. It absorbed and replaced the Aeronautical Division, Signal Corps, and co ...

at Hazelhurst Field,

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18th ...

where he test flew early open-cockpit aircraft such as the

Continental KB-1 The Continental KB-1, also known as KB-1 Military Biplane or KB-1 Continental Pusher, is an early design developed by the engineer Vincent Burnelli. Development The KB-1 was Burnelli's second production aircraft after his Burnelli-Carisi Biplane ...

over New York in below freezing conditions. Acosta married Mary Louise Brumley (1886–1962) in 1918 but they divorced in 1920. He won The Pulitzer Trophy Race in 1921 and the same year set an

airspeed record An air speed record is the highest airspeed attained by an aircraft of a particular class. The rules for all official aviation records are defined by Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), which also ratifies any claims. Speed records ...

of 176.9 miles an hour. In 1922 he served as a test pilot for the

Stout Batwing Limousine The Stout Batwing Limousine was a single-engine, high-wing cantilever aircraft. It was also called simply the "Commercial Sedan". Development William Bushnell Stout developed the Stout Batwing, a cantilever blended-wing aircraft with the engine ...

, Stout's forerunner to the

Ford Trimotor The Ford Trimotor (also called the "Tri-Motor", and nicknamed the "Tin Goose") is an American three-engined transport aircraft. Production started in 1925 by the companies of Henry Ford and ended on June 7, 1933, after 199 had been made. It w ...

. In 1925 he was a lieutenant in the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...

and was living at 1 Winslow Court in

Naugatuck, Connecticut Naugatuck is a consolidated borough and town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. The town spans both sides of the Naugatuck River just south of Waterbury and includes the communities of Union City on the east side of the river, whic ...

. He married Helen Belmont Pearsoll, on August 3, 1921. They eventually separated but never divorced.

Endurance record

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

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...

'' magazine reported on April 25, 1927:

Engineer Giuseppe M. Bellanca of the
Columbia Aircraft Corporation The Columbia Aircraft Corporation was an American aircraft manufacturer, which was active between 1927 and 1947. History Columbia Aircraft was founded in December 1927 by Charles A. Levine as chairman and the aircraft designer Giuseppe Mario ...
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 Clarence Duncan Chamberlin (November 11, 1893 – October 31, 1976) was an American pioneer of aviation, being the second man to pilot a fixed-wing aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean, from New York to the European mainland, while carrying the firs ...
and burly Bert Acosta, onetime auto speedster, to test his ship's endurance. Up they put from
Mitchel Field, Long Island Mitchel Air Force Base also known as Mitchel Field, was a United States Air Force base located on the Hempstead Plains of Long Island, New York, United States. Established in 1918 as Hazelhurst Aviation Field #2, the facility was renamed later ...
, with 385 gallons of ethylated (high power) gasoline. All day they droned back and forth over suburbia, circled the
Woolworth Building The Woolworth Building is an early American skyscraper designed by architect Cass Gilbert located at 233 Broadway in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was the tallest building in the world from 1913 to 1930, with a he ...
, hovered over Hadley Field, New Jersey, swung back to drop notes on
Mitchel Field Mitchell may refer to: People * Mitchell (surname) * Mitchell (given name) Places Australia * Mitchell, Australian Capital Territory, a light-industrial estate * Mitchell, New South Wales, a suburb of Bathurst * Mitchell, Northern Terr ...
. 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 Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the List of counties in New York, origin ...
to
Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...
. 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.

Orteig Prize attempt

Columbia Aircraft Corp president

Charles Levine Charles Albert Levine (March 17, 1897 – December 6, 1991) was the first passenger aboard a transatlantic flight. He was ready to cross the Atlantic to claim the Orteig prize but a court battle over who was going to be in the airplane allowed C ...

planned on using

Clarence Chamberlin Clarence Duncan Chamberlin (November 11, 1893 – October 31, 1976) was an American pioneer of aviation, being the second man to pilot a fixed-wing aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean, from New York to the European mainland, while carrying the firs ...

or Bert Acosta as pilot with Lloyd W. Bertaud as copilot on their attempt at the

Orteig prize The Orteig Prize was a reward offered to the first Allied aviator(s) to fly non-stop from New York City to Paris or vice versa.Bak. Pages 28 and 29. Several famous aviators made unsuccessful attempts at the New York–Paris flight before the rel ...

in the

Wright-Bellanca WB-2 Columbia The sole Wright-Bellanca WB-2, named ''Columbia'', ''Miss Columbia'', and later ''Maple Leaf'', was the second in a series of aircraft designed by Giuseppe Mario Bellanca, initially for Wright Aeronautical then later Columbia Aircraft Corp. D ...

. Levine bumped Bertaud from the copilot position, prompting an injunction preventing any Orteig record flight.

Charles Lindbergh Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. On May 20–21, 1927, Lindbergh made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance ...

arrived on May 5, 1927. While Chamberlin waited for the injunction to be lifted, his other competition, Admiral Byrd's team was repairing his Fokker C-2 Trimotor, the "

America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

" after a practice run crash. On May 20–21, 1927, Lindbergh left

Roosevelt Field Roosevelt Field is a former airport, located east-southeast of Mineola, Long Island, New York. Originally called the Hempstead Plains Aerodrome, or sometimes Hempstead Plains field or the Garden City Aerodrome, it was a training field (Hazel ...

and crossing the Atlantic, while leaving the 'Columbia' and 'Atlantic' behind at the adjacent Curtiss Field.

Transatlantic flight

On June 29, 1927, thirty-three days after Charles Lindbergh's record setting

transatlantic flight A transatlantic flight is the flight of an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe, Africa, South Asia, or the Middle East to North America, Central America, or South America, or ''vice versa''. Such flights have been made by fixed-wing a ...

, Acosta flew from

on Long Island to France with Commander

Richard E. Byrd Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr. (October 25, 1888 – March 11, 1957) was an American naval officer and explorer. He was a recipient of the Medal of Honor, the highest honor for valor given by the United States, and was a pioneering American aviator, p ...

, Lieutenant George O. Noville and

Bernt Balchen Bernt Balchen (23 October 1899 – 17 October 1973) was a Norwegian pioneer polar aviator, navigator, aircraft mechanical engineer and military leader. A Norwegian native, he later became an American citizen and was a recipient of the Disting ...

aboard the ''

''. A short film of Acosta, Byrd, George Noville, and

Grover Whalen Grover Aloysius Whalen (1886–1962) was a prominent politician, businessman, and public relations guru in New York City during the 1930s and 1940s. Early years Whalen was born on July 2, 1886, in New York City, the son of an Irish immigrant fat ...

giving a farewell speech was filmed in the

Phonofilm Phonofilm is an optical sound-on-film system developed by inventors Lee de Forest and Theodore Case in the early 1920s. Introduction In 1919 and 1920, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patents on a sound-on-film process, ...

sound-on-film process on June 29 and released as ''America's Flyers''. During the flight, 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.

Bad boy persona

Joseph Terleph Congratulates Test Pilot Burt Acosta On a Sucess0002

In 1928 Connecticut suspended his pilot license for trying to fly under the Whittemore Memorial Bridge in

Naugatuck Naugatuck is a consolidated borough (Connecticut), borough and town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. The town spans both sides of the Naugatuck River just south of Waterbury, Connecticut, Waterbury and includes the communities of ...

. According to local Naugatuck tradition, the wing span of his aircraft was much longer than the width of the center arch of the bridge. The flight may have been a publicity stunt, as there was an advertisement for Splitdorf Spark Plugs on the fuselage. In 1929 he was fined $500 for low flying and stunting. When he failed to pay the fine, the

Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce is an executive department of the U.S. federal government concerned with creating the conditions for economic growth and opportunity. Among its tasks are gathering economic and demographic data for busi ...

revoked his pilot license. He was arrested by Connecticut State troopers in 1930 for flying without a license. A new Terle Sportplane was being tested at

in New York in 1931, but the CAA did not register it as a licensed aircraft. The aircraft was later test flown by Acosta, who found it perfect for his use since he was currently grounded from flying licensed aircraft from a previous infraction. After performing aerobatics with the aircraft to a large crowd, Acosta and designer Joseph Terle planned to produce the aircraft together as the "Acosterle Wild Cet". The aircraft was test flown for two years, but could not meet certification requirements. In 1931 he planned to fly from New York to

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Oce ...

with Captain Lisandro Garay of the Honduran Air Force in a

Bellanca CH-300 The Bellanca CH-300 Pacemaker was a six-seat utility aircraft, built primarily in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. It was a development of the Bellanca CH-200, fitted with a more powerful engine and, like the CH-200, soon became renowne ...

. Acosta disappeared before a fully loaded "test flight" with 360 gallons of gasoline. Instead, Garay departed from

Floyd Bennett Field Floyd Bennett Field is an airfield in the Marine Park neighborhood of southeast Brooklyn in New York City, along the shore of Jamaica Bay. The airport originally hosted commercial and general aviation traffic before being used as a naval air ...

without him, making it as far as Cape Hatteras, NC, where due to a storm he was forced to land at sea.

Spanish Civil War

In 1936 Acosta was head of the Yankee Squadron in the

with

Eddie August Schneider Eddie August Henry Schneider (October 20, 1911 – December 23, 1940) was an American aviator who set three transcontinental airspeed records for pilots under the age of twenty-one in 1930. His plane was a Cessna Model AW with a Warner-Sc ...

and Frederic Ives Lord. ''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 Generalísimo
Francisco Franco Francisco Franco Bahamonde (; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general who led the Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War and thereafter ruled over Spain from 193 ...
'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 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, Generalísimo 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 1951 Acosta collapsed in a New York City bar and was hospitalized with

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in w ...

. He died at the Jewish Consumptive's Relief Society sanatorium in

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...

in 1954. He was 59. Acosta was buried at the

Portal of the Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation The Portal of the Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation is in Los Angeles, California. The shrine is a structure of marble, mosaic, and sculpted figures and is the burial site for fifteen pioneers of aviation. Designed by Kenneth A. MacDonald Jr. an ...

Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery is located at 10621 Victory Boulevard in North Hollywood and Burbank, California. The cemetery has an entrance called the Portal of the Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation that is the final resting place for aviatio ...

North Hollywood, California North Hollywood is a neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, located in the San Fernando Valley. The neighborhood contains the NoHo Arts District, the El Portal Theatre, several art galleries, and the Academy of TV Arts and Sciences. The North ...

Legacy

In 2014, Acosta was posthumously inducted into the

National Aviation Hall of Fame The National Aviation Hall of Fame (NAHF) is a museum, annual awards ceremony and learning and research center that was founded in 1962 as an Ohio non-profit corporation in Dayton, Ohio, United States, known as the "Birthplace of Aviation" with i ...

, along with pilot and astronaut

James McDivitt James Alton McDivitt (June 10, 1929 – October 13, 2022) was an American test pilot, United States Air Force (USAF) pilot, aeronautical engineer, and NASA astronaut in the Gemini and Apollo programs. He joined the USAF in 1951 and flew 145 ...

, the first female airline captain Emily Warner,

Cirrus Cirrus may refer to: Science *Cirrus (biology), any of various thin, thread-like structures on the body of an animal * Cirrus (botany), a tendril *Infrared cirrus, in astronomy, filamentary structures seen in infrared light *Cirrus cloud, a typ ...

founders and designers Dale and Alan Klapmeier, and homebuilt aircraft racer

Steve Wittman Sylvester Joseph "Steve" Wittman (April 5, 1904 – April 27, 1995) was an American air-racer and aircraft engineer. An illness in Wittman's infancy claimed most of his vision in one eye, which convinced him from an early age that his dre ...

. His name was submitted for induction by Norberto Franco Cisneros.

References

External links

Bert Acosta
at Corbis
Bert Acosta bibliography
*

at Aerofiles

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Acosta, Bert 1895 births 1954 deaths People from San Diego National Aviation Hall of Fame inductees Aviators from California Spanish Civil War pilots Yankee Squadron 20th-century deaths from tuberculosis Burials at Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery Flight endurance record holders American aviation record holders Tuberculosis deaths in Colorado