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.