Viewing page 12 of 26

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

42 hours, 6 minutes of flying time and an estimated total distance of approximately 4,200 miles. After remaining in France for several weeks the Byrd expedition and group returned to the United States in late July on the S. S. Leviathan.

In 1929 Acosta and Richard Depew were elected members of the Advisory Board of the William E. Arthur Company of New York, airport planners and builders. In January Acosta had announced the Acosta Aircraft Company, New York, to use the former Mercer automobile factory at Trenton, New Jersey, and that spring he conducted wind tunnel tests of models of his projected plane at New York University, but apparently nothing came of this project. During this period he remained an aviation consultant for several companies and on occasion also did some instructing.

In January, 1937 Acosta and C. K. Berry were served with a Federal Grand Jury subpoena upon their return to the United States from Spain where they had been flying for that Government during the civil war.
Evidently Acosta remained in the New York area, and in 1952 was found on the street after he had collapsed in the advanced stages of gradually failing health. He was removed to a Jewish Consumptive Relief Society Sanatorium in Denver, Colorado, where he died of cancer on September 1st, 1954 at age 59. Following cremation his ashes were interred in the Portal of Folded Wings, Valhalla Memorial Park, Los Angeles, California along with many other aviation notables.

Flying Pioneer Bertram B. Acosta was indeed one of the most colorful of early aviators. He started at the very beginning, and by determination and hard work he became one of the nation's leading consulting test pilots. He also taught countless numbers to fly and served his country well in World War 1. His is a record that must be well recorded in American aviation history.

FROM THE FLYING PIONEERS BIOGRAPHIES OF HAROLD E. MOREHOUSE

5