page_title: Weldon B. Cooke
section_title: Aviation career
hierarchical_section_title: Weldon B. Cooke / Aviation career
caption_attribution_description: English: Weldon B. Cooke's aeroplane (LOC) Bain News Service,, publisher. Weldon B. Cooke's aeroplane 1913 July 6 (date created or published later by Bain) 1 negative&#160;: glass&#160;; 5 x 7 in. or smaller. Notes: Title and date from data provided by the Bain News Service on the negative. Photo shows airplane of aviator Weldon B. Cooke (1884-1914). (Source: Flickr Commons Project, 2009) Forms part of: George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress). Format: Glass negatives. Rights Info: No known restrictions on publication. Repository: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print General information about the Bain Collection is available at hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.ggbain Persistent URL: hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.13387 Call Number: LC-B2- 2738-5
context_page_description: Weldon Baxter Cooke was a pioneer aviator.
context_section_description: In 1910, Cooke built and flew a Montgomery-type glider. In 1911, barge captain Lan Maupin and shipyard owner Bernard Lanteri constructed a biplane of their own design in Pittsburg, California that they named 'Black Diamond' after the nearby coal mines. In June 1911 Maupin and Lanteri took a few test hops in their aircraft and decided they needed a professional pilot and hired Cooke, even though Cooke had never flown a powered aircraft.
  Throughout the summer of 1911,Cooke practiced in the Black Diamond several times a day and made his exhibition flying debut at the Walnut Creek Grape Festival on October 6,7 1911. On 19 December 1911 Cooke was the first person to overfly Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California in the Black Diamond. The flight ended in Mill Valley, California in-route to Oakland after an engine failure and glide to landing from 2000 ft of altitude.
  In early 1912, Cooke passed his test for his pilot's license, which was presented to him by Oakland Mayor Frank K. Mott on Jan. 13, 1912. He received Aero Club of America's pilots license # 95, making him the second licensed pilot in California. 
  Cooke's Black Diamond exhibition flying culminated in its appearance in the January 1912 Los Angeles International air meet at Dominguez Field. Cooke's flying was outstanding, setting the meet record for endurance and altitude, winning $7,400 in prizes. In 1911 and 1912, including the Los Angeles prize money, Cooke's flying earned Maupin and Lanteri's now named 'Diamond Airplane Co.', a total of $14,800. The Los Angeles meet was the last flight of the Black Diamond. The Black Diamond was disassembled and put into storage and, in 1948, the Maupin family donated it to the Smithsonian. In 1998, it was offered to the Hiller Aviation Museum where it was restored and put on display.
  At an exhibition on December 31, 1911 – January 1, 1912 in Santa Rosa, California, Cooke took a test flight in a biplane that had been constructed by Fred J. Wiseman that Wiseman had used for the world's first airmail flight from Petaluma, California to Santa Rosa. After the Los Angeles meet, Cooke no longer had an aircraft to fly, so he arranged to purchase the Wiseman biplane and had it crated up and sent to Emeryville, California for an exhibition where he was to race Lincoln Beachy. Compared to Beachy's aircraft, the Wiseman biplane was under powered and Beachy beat him easily in all five days of the event. To improve the performance, Cooke replaced the 60 hp (45 kW) Hall-Scott A-2 with a 75 hp (56 kW) Roberts two-stroke motor. Cooke continued to modify this aircraft as he used it for exhibition flying across the United States during 1912.  The modified aircraft became known as the Wiseman-Cooke biplane. This aircraft became the second Cooke piloted aircraft donated to the Smithsonian where it was restored and put on display at the National Postal Museum.  By late 1912, Cooke had arrived in Sandusky, Ohio where he formed the Cooke Aeroplane Co. to build aircraft of his own design. The Roberts Motor Company let him use a portion of their facility to work on his aircraft.
  When Cooke participated in the 1913 Great Lakes Reliability Cruise his address was listed as Sandusky, Ohio.
  In May 1914, Cooke was back in the San Francisco Bay Area where he was the pilot of Silas Christofferson's 'Aeromaid' flying boat. Christofferson tried to start an aerial ferry service between Oakland and San Francisco, but gave up after just a few flights.
  Cooke died on September 6, 1914 in an aircrash in Pueblo, Colorado.
caption: Cooke flying a floatplane on 6 July 1913
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