Tony LeVier

Anthony W. "Tony" LeVier (February 14, 1913 – February 6, 1998) was an air racer and test pilot for the Lockheed Corporation from the 1940s to the 1970s.

Early life

Born Anthony Puck in Duluth, Minnesota, his father died while he was still young. His mother, Aloysia Evans, moved Tony and his older sister Nancy to southern California for the warmer climate. While Tony was a teenager, his mother remarried, to Oscar LeVier, who gave the children his name.

From an early age, Tony LeVier had been much more interested in flying than his studies, so he dropped out of high school to pursue flying full-time. He worked odd jobs to pay for food and flying, mostly maintaining airplanes or flight instructing.

Air racing

In 1936, he began to try his hand at air racing, starting with the national air races in Los Angeles. In 1938 he flew, for the first time, a Keith Rider racer dubbed The Firecracker, owned by air racing enthusiast Bill Schoenfeldt. In this plane, he won the Greve Trophy in Cleveland that year. His landing after that flight was rough and damaged the aircraft too heavily to allow him to compete for the Thompson Trophy the next day. A year later, he was back in Cleveland, and this time placed second in the Thompson race.

Levier

Levier is a French Commune in the Doubs department in the Franche-Comté region in eastern France.

Geography

Levier is located 20 km (12 mi) from Pontarlier, 45 km (28 mi) from Besançon, and 14 km (8.7 mi) from the TGV station at Frasne.

Population

Economy

The economy is based on forestry.

See also

References

External links