Weldon B. Cooke

Cooke in a floatplane on 6 July 1913
Born	1884
Died	6 September 1914

Weldon Baxter Cooke of Oakland, California was a pioneer aviator.^[1][2]

Biography

He was born in 1884 in Oakland, California to Ada L. and William H. Cooke.^[3] On 19 December 1911 Cooke was the first person to overfly Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California in an aircraft called the "Black Diamond". The flight ended in Mill Valley, California inroute to Oakland after an engine failure and glide to landing from 2000ft of altitude. The "Black Diamond" was donated to the Smithsonian, and is on display at the Hiller Aviation Museum.^{[4] [5][6]}

Cooke flying a floatplane on 6 July 1913

Cooke died on September 6, 1914 in an aircrash in Pueblo, Colorado.^[1]

References

1. "Weldon B. Cooke". Early Aviators. Retrieved 2010-11-09. ... He was on a vertical bank and never got straightened out, and was killed. Cooke had promised his mother he would stop flying, just before he was killed in the crash at Pueblo, Colorado, on 6 September 1914. ...
2. San Francisco Bay Area Aviation. Arcadia Publishing. p. 13. Weldon B. Cooke became its pilot. He had practiced in Oakland beginning in July 1910 with a Montgomery glider and subsequently trained with the Diamond several times a day. Cooke made his first professional appearance in a series of ...
3. 1910 US census in Oakland, California
4. Carl Nolte (19 December 2011). "Pioneering flight over Mt. Tam made 100 years ago". San Francisco Chronicle.
5. "Maupin-Lanteri Black Diamond". Retrieved 19 December 2011.
6. "Black Diamond". Retrieved 19 December 2011.