Black Diamond - 1910 California Pioneer Aircraft

A stop on Hiller Aviation Museum: Unofficial Guide, a free self-guided tour.

The Black Diamond is a biplane built in 1910 by Lan Maupin and Bernard Lanteri in Pittsburg, California, a town at the edge of the delta east of San Francisco. Pittsburg was then known as Black Diamond, after the coal mined in the nearby hills, and the aircraft took the town's name.

Lanteri ran a shipyard, and the airplane was built there using the same skills shipbuilders used, working with wood, wire and fabric.

In the early 1900s, Northern California was home to many amateur and professional aircraft builders, inspired by the Wrights and by the region's own early fliers.

The Black Diamond is one of the oldest California-built aircraft that survives, a reminder of how much of early aviation was invented in workshops and garages.

Stops on this tour

  1. Boeing 747-100 Cockpit and Forward Fuselage
  2. Hiller Flying Platform
  3. Boeing Condor High-Altitude Reconnaissance UAV
  4. NASA AD-1 Oblique Wing Research Aircraft
  5. Wright Flyer Replica and Early Flight Exhibit
  6. Black Diamond - 1910 California Pioneer Aircraft
  7. Grumman HU-16 Albatross Amphibious Aircraft
  8. Boeing 737-200 Cockpit
  9. Flight Sim Zone
  10. Women in Aviation Gallery
  11. Aircraft Engine Collection
  12. Lockheed YO-3 Quiet Star
  13. San Francisco Airport Control Tower Beacon
  14. Drone Plex and Future of Flight Exhibit
  15. Michael King Smith Research Library and Museum Store