Word: bert
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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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...
...Bertrand Blanchard ("Bert") Acosta was chief pilot of Admiral Byrd's transatlantic flight. According to legend, Byrd had to hit him over the head with a fire extinguisher when he got out of hand during the flight. Drink had by that time made him a "physical wreck," according to no less an authority than Anthony H. G. ("Tony") Fokker. Acosta's reply was that "Tony Fokker can go to hell...
Born in San Diego, Calif, of an old Castilian family, Bert Acosta was a professional automobile racer at 13. In 1910, aged 15, he learned to fly in a ship he built himself as a copy of a Curtiss "pusher." Year later he began working for Glenn Curtiss, went to Canada in 1914 to teach Royal Air Force students to fly. Afterward he taught U. S. Army pilots, became a captain in the Wartime Air Service, returned to Curtiss after the Armistice...
...Junior Varsity and Freshman shells raced over a two-mile course with the Freshman boat winning by a length of open water. The times were 9.5 and 9.45 for the Yearlings and Jayvees respectively. The Freshman boat is rated as 'just about average" by Bert Haines and since the Eli yearlings have beaten their Varsity on one occasion and have lost by six feet on another this year's crew will not row with the confidence that marked the race of last spring...
...Bert's first boat is: stroke Senior; 7, Twining; 6, Erickson; 5, Radway; 4, Chace; 3, Gardiner; 2, Clark, bow, Brooks; cox, White...