# An Air Force F-22 crashed



## comiso90 (Mar 25, 2009)

WASHINGTON (CNN) — An Air Force F-22 crashed Wednesday near Edwards Air Force Base in California, Air Force officials said.

The single-seat fighter crashed about 10:30 a.m. (1:30 p.m. ET) for unknown reasons, the officials said.

The status of the pilot was unknown.

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Lets hope the pilot is ok...

.


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## Bill G. (Mar 25, 2009)

The pilot did successfully eject. 

I wonder if this was a "software" crash????

Bill G.


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## Flyboy2 (Mar 25, 2009)

Did he eject? I heard about an hour ago that he was dead


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## beaupower32 (Mar 25, 2009)

3/25/2009 - EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- An Air Force F-22A crash today claimed the life of a USAF veteran and Lockheed Martin test pilot. 

David Cooley, 49, of Palmdale, Calif., died when the F-22A he was piloting crashed northeast of Edwards AFB. Cooley worked as a test pilot with Lockheed Martin, and was employed at the 411th Flight Test Squadron, 412th Test Wing, on Edwards AFB. Cooley joined Lockheed Martin in 2003 and was a 21-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force. He worked at the F-22 Combined Test Force, where a team of Lockheed Martin and Air Force pilots conduct F-22 aircraft testing. 

"This is a very difficult day for Edwards and those who knew and respected Dave as a warrior, test pilot and friend," said Maj Gen David Eichhorn, Air Force Flight Test Center commander. "Our thoughts and prayers are with Dave and his family as we struggle through, and do all we can to support them." 

At approximately 10 a.m. this morning Edwards received word that the F-22A had gone down 35 miles northeast of the base. First responders transported Cooley from the crash scene to Victor Valley Community Hospital in Victorville, where he was pronounced dead. 

A board of officers is investigating the accident through an Accident Investigation Board, whose findings will be released to the public upon completion. 

Base officials stress that the accident site is remote and may contain hazardous materials released from the crash, and ask that individuals refrain from entering the area until the full investigation has been completed, and debris removed from the scene


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## mkloby (Mar 25, 2009)




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## FLYBOYJ (Mar 26, 2009)




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## ToughOmbre (Mar 26, 2009)

TO


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## RabidAlien (Mar 26, 2009)




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## Gnomey (Mar 26, 2009)




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## evangilder (Mar 27, 2009)




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## evangilder (Mar 27, 2009)

Bill, you have to be careful with premature news like that.


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## Bill G. (Mar 27, 2009)

evangilder said:


> Bill, you have to be careful with premature news like that.



Sorry about the goof. I saw the story and ran. This time off the clift! But that is what I get for trusting the media!

Bill G.


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## fly boy (Mar 27, 2009)

Bill G. said:


> The pilot did successfully eject.
> 
> I wonder if this was a "software" crash????
> 
> Bill G.



same here bill was the temp really cold and what kind of computer PC or Mac?


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## Trebor (Mar 27, 2009)




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## imalko (Mar 27, 2009)




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## Bill G. (Mar 27, 2009)

fly boy said:


> same here bill was the temp really cold and what kind of computer PC or Mac?



I know the F-22 depends on computers to fly. That was why the comment. If the computers quit working, the plane quits flying. I am puzzled as to why the pilot failed to eject. 

It is sad to lose a skilled test pilot. 

I wonder if the Air Force will release the cause of the crash?

Bill G.


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## beaupower32 (Mar 27, 2009)

I was stationed out at Edwards for 6 years. They do alot of flying other than laps around the flag pole. He could have lost situational awareness and impacted the ground. They do alot of testing involving loops, rolls, and stalls. Its so hard to say what the cause was. So lets wait till the Air Forces tells us. 

In the meantime, here is a video of a Raptor doing stall testing out at Edwards AFB. 



_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjHWLuJO-3k_


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## mkloby (Mar 27, 2009)

Bill G. said:


> I know the F-22 depends on computers to fly. That was why the comment. If the computers quit working, the plane quits flying. I am puzzled as to why the pilot failed to eject.
> 
> It is sad to lose a skilled test pilot.
> 
> ...



I'm sure that it has double if not triple redundant flight control computers, so the odds of them all quitting is very remote.

The AF may release some details regarding the mishap due to the high publicity of the event, but they will probably not release all.


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## beaupower32 (Mar 27, 2009)

mkloby said:


> I'm sure that it has double if not triple redundant flight control computers, so the odds of them all quitting is very remote.
> 
> The AF may release some details regarding the mishap due to the high publicity of the event, but they will probably not release all.



Exactly, as this aircraft is still mostly classified, they will not release all that happened.


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## evangilder (Mar 28, 2009)

All I can say is that if it was a systems issue (IF! I have no idea what caused the crash), let's hope they resolve it before anyone else loses their life testing it.


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## FLYBOYJ (Mar 28, 2009)

Here's his obituary in the local Antelope Valley paper. I actually recognize him from some of the aviation functions I've attended when I lived in the area.

Antelope Valley Press Classification 1000 (Obituary notices and memorials)


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## Lucky13 (Mar 28, 2009)




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## Matt308 (Mar 29, 2009)

beaupower32 said:


> In the meantime, here is a video of a Raptor doing stall testing out at Edwards AFB.
> 
> 
> 
> _View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjHWLuJO-3k_




That is one nasty stall characteristic. Something else is going on in that video. Like perhaps they are simulating flight control laws in reversionary mode or something similar. Surely that is not the normal departure from stall.


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## mkloby (Mar 29, 2009)

Matt308 said:


> That is one nasty stall characteristic. Something else is going on in that video. Like perhaps they are simulating flight control laws in reversionary mode or something similar. Surely that is not the normal departure from stall.



That is strange - looks like an out of control recovery test more than just a plain stall...


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## Aaron Brooks Wolters (Mar 29, 2009)




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## FLYBOYJ (Mar 31, 2009)

From: Eichhorn, David J MajGen USAF AFMC AFFTC/CC

Sent: Sunday, March 29, 2009 4:16 PM

To: Edwards All Personnel

Subject: General INFO #74 - Paid in Blood

Men and Women of the Air Force Flight Test Center,

I labored long and hard on this one...how to approach this disaster?

How do we make sense of it? What does it really mean to all of us? 

I know one thing for sure. At a minimum, I ask each and every one of us to reassess what's really important in our lives. Then I ask that you make that a priority in your life - you know why. Then don't forget those around you. Our CTFs are a family. None of us are in this alone.

We depend on each other and we deeply care about each other. There is tremendous strength in that and we need it now more than ever.

This week we were going about our business as usual. Last Wednesday in the Antelope valley was just another beautiful day to fly. Then our lives and the lives of some of our dearest friends were shattered. This week witnessed tragedy. Mr. David "Cools" Cooley was flying his F-22A Raptor where test pilots dream of flying their machines, out at its limits when something went horribly wrong. Mr. Cooley ejected but died from injuries sustained and the plane crashed incredibly violently into the desert floor. He paid the ultimate price for some lack of knowledge we must have had. 

Once again, the Air Force Flight Test Center wrote a check in blood. It was a MEDIUM RISK test. The professionals were all over it. I've never seen a more professional flight brief or test pilot. I want to know how this happened and I want us all to learn the maximum from this experience because we paid the maximum amount possible. 

Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous

But to an even greater degree than the sea

It is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect

When it comes to test flying, it is not "in itself." It is "Toward the Unknown." That means, test flying is inherently dangerous because we frequently push the envelope in our controlled, austere environment to discover what might not work as intended operationally. I say again, what we do at Edwards is inherently dangerous and nothing anyone says or does can change that fact.

On Wednesday, March 25th, 2009, something went terribly, terribly wrong and something surprised us in a way that recovery was not possible for man or machine. And the airspace and that ground will never be the same. We recognize it's been re-dedicated to the mission and nature of flight test. 

"But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate...we cannot consecrate...we cannot hallow...this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to that great task remaining before us...that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain;"

President Lincoln at Gettysburg

Mr. Cooley wasn't the first and he won't be the last (although I certainly pray that he is). I do believe the land and air around Edwards Air Force Base is sacred. Many really, really fine people have made it so in the much the same way Abraham Lincoln described at Gettysburg. Now, Lt Col (ret) David Cooley has been added to our list of flyers who distinguished themselves in the most profound way possible. Our street names should be a stark reminder of that fact.

I am highly confident, with the wealth of data our instrumentation and telemetry systems have, that we will know what happened down to the minute details. That is the nature of our business in the end. We get the data and learn from that data. In this case it's to ensure our worst nightmare is never repeated and it takes all of us taking these lessons to heart. We are all human and we need reminding on just how dangerous what we do is.

Folks, we weren't safe last week. But as is so often true, the disaster brought out the best in others. China Lake NAS, Ft Irwin Army Post, the California Highway Patrol and Edwards AFB personnel all responded quickly and professionally. It clearly demonstrated the tremendous partnership and talent we have here in the Mojave desert. These people are the best!

This week, we have memorial services and we have to help put back together people's lives. Then we have to go on "dedicated to that great task remaining before us." Cools would want it that way.

This is a hard lesson for all of us...but the dead don't die in vain in the Mojave Desert.

Ike

DAVID J. EICHHORN, Maj Gen, USAF

Commander, Air Force Flight Test Center


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## Matt308 (Mar 31, 2009)

...and one must wonder whether Mr. Cooley put his own personal safety ahead of the economic cost of a single F-22, the political impact to another loss of an F-22 in the current funding schedule, or his own realization that few F-22s will ever follow an accident under his pilotage.

Hopefully not. For his knowledge, experience and professionalism are worth more than all.

God bless his family.


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## Heinz (Apr 1, 2009)




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## drgondog (Apr 2, 2009)

Matt308 said:


> That is one nasty stall characteristic. Something else is going on in that video. Like perhaps they are simulating flight control laws in reversionary mode or something similar. Surely that is not the normal departure from stall.



Matt - the video captures much of the 'stunts' I saw at Davis Monthan at the Heritage Meeting.

One of the manuevers was hanging like a metronome in a vertical position with tail swinging from 7 - 5 O'clock for several seconds, then stopping and nosing from vertical to ablout 20 degrees AoA, then accelerating in the horizontal then swapping ends and coming back over the stands.

In the 'hanging' position it was hard to say whether it was in zero vertical velocity but it looked like it.

The most noticably different aero features I noted on a close up inspection was a tremendous amount of leading edge twist in the wing as well as a 'hollow camber'. The wing has significant camber and it (lower surface)follows the contour of the upper wing.

And of course the thrust deflector devise aft.

Never saw anything like this at any time.


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## Matt308 (Apr 3, 2009)

I too have seen these demonstrations. But I have not seen the reverse flat spin characteristic coming out of a stall. I recognize that modern aircraft are inherently unstable.

I suspect that either they were testing a degraded/reversionary mode of the FCC or were encountering early unstable airframe characteristics that have since been accounted for in FCC control laws.


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## beaupower32 (Apr 3, 2009)

Matt308 said:


> I recognize that modern aircraft are inherently unstable.




Most of your modern fighters (F-16,F-22, and so on) are built to be unstable to give them the super manuverability that u see from them. Only the onboard computers keep the aircraft flying in a stable condition. Just look at the B-2 and F-117. They are both unstabe and only with the help of their computers are they able to fly.


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## Geedee (Apr 3, 2009)

Blue skies, David


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## Hangwire (Apr 3, 2009)

Salute.


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## drgondog (Apr 3, 2009)

Matt308 said:


> I too have seen these demonstrations. But I have not seen the reverse flat spin characteristic coming out of a stall. I recognize that modern aircraft are inherently unstable.
> 
> I suspect that either they were testing a degraded/reversionary mode of the FCC or were encountering early unstable airframe characteristics that have since been accounted for in FCC control laws.



that is probably true


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## fly boy (Apr 8, 2009)

still i want to know do they use PC or mac or something else


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 8, 2009)

fly boy said:


> still i want to know do they use PC or mac or something else



an X box


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## fly boy (Apr 8, 2009)

FLYBOYJ said:


> an X box



theres an idea i think


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## evangilder (Apr 8, 2009)

Windows Vista


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## fly boy (Apr 8, 2009)

evangilder said:


> Windows Vista



thats what i was thinking if it was a PC


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## comiso90 (Apr 8, 2009)

FLYBOYJ said:


> an X box



 

actually its a 386 PC running windows 3.1.

Next year they're gonna switch from the Floopy disk to 3.5 diskette and a monitor that has 256 colors.

"Leisure Suit Larry" and "Wolfenstein" are the training sims.
.


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## evangilder (Apr 8, 2009)

Are you sure? They must have upgraded from the Timex Sinclair 1000 they were using last airshow season...


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## comiso90 (Apr 8, 2009)

evangilder said:


> Are you sure? They must have upgraded from the Timex Sinclair 1000 they were using last airshow season...



Ha.. I had to Google that one....


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## Matt308 (Apr 8, 2009)

You dumbasses, this is serious. The F-22 uses a VAX server with Trash80 clients. Sheesh.


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## evangilder (Apr 9, 2009)

Not even a MicroVax??? Wow! And that is a "Triss" 80.

True story: When I worked in depot repair for a computer company in the late 80s, someone brought in a TRS80 for repair. While I was on the phone with their support, they asked what OS I was running. Without thinking, I said "trash DOS". The lady on the other end of the phone sais "Sir, that's TRISS DOS". I still laugh when I think about it.


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## mkloby (Apr 9, 2009)

It wouldn't be so funny if you knew how old some of the flight control computers really are...


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## Butters (Apr 9, 2009)

The Apollos managed to get to the Moon and back with a 64K jobbie.

BTW, I remember seeing those Timex computers as a kid. You could even buy 2K RAM upgrades...

JL


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## Matt308 (Apr 9, 2009)

Like Boeing 757 and 767 FMCs that are 386 based with 1Meg of RAM? I agree, not so funny. But gets the job done.

I remember reading that the flight computer on the B-58 Hustler was no more capable than an early Macintosh Apple computer. And yet...

"Navigation and bombing at Mach 2 presented unusual problems, which on the B-58 were to be solved by a Sperry AN/ASQ-42 system which used active radar navigation during a mission’s approach phase, with inertial and star-tracking methods employed over enemy territory. Weigh*ing 1,948 pounds, the system had an analog computer receiving data from search radar in the nose, an astro star tracker amidships, a Doppler radar in the tail, inertial sensors, and radio altimeter. Sitting at his console behind the pilot, the bombardier-navigator was provided with continuous and precise information on aircraft position, heading, ground speed, altitude, steering data, and distance to target, as well as ballistic computations for weapons release. Unfortu*nately, not until 1967 was the system’s reliability satisfactory."

Can you imagine what the power consumption must have been.


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## davparlr (Apr 9, 2009)

mkloby said:


> It wouldn't be so funny if you knew how old some of the flight control computers really are...



You're right. The B-2 bomber uses computers from the early '80s. A little story. We were adding an antenna switch as a later upgrade. This had to talk on the muxbus thus had a small computer board with a bit of memory. As it turned out, this little switch had, if I remember correctly, 5 times the processing power and 10 times the memory as all the other avionics processors on the aircraft combimed! 



Butters said:


> The Apollos managed to get to the Moon and back with a 64K jobbie.



It is amazing the processing you can do when you don't have to deal with Windows!


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## davparlr (Apr 9, 2009)

mkloby said:


> I'm sure that it has double if not triple redundant flight control computers, so the odds of them all quitting is very remote.



Tripple redundant as a minimum, maybe quad. The B-2 is quad.


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## beaupower32 (Apr 11, 2009)

A missing man formation at Edwards saluting Lt. Col. Cooley.






4/1/2009 - EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- Team Edwards celebrated the life of retired Lt. Col. David Cooley as an Airman, test pilot and wingman during a memorial service at Hangar 1600 here April 1. 

Colonel Cooley, Lockheed-Martin F-22 Raptor test pilot, died in an F-22A crash March 25 during a test mission, northeast of Edwards. 

"On behalf of the entire F-22 Combined Test Force, thank you for joining us today as we mourn and remember one of our own," said Lt. Col. Dan Daetz, 411th Flight Test Squadron commander, during the memorial service. "Dave was never ours to own, we just got to borrow his life for a while." 

Colonel Daetz said Colonel Cooley's life can be summed up in two words, "great love." 

"Great love is what Dave has for his Lord Jesus, and it showed in the kindness and respect he showed for others, " Colonel Daetz said. "He didn't complain when things didn't go his way. Dave also had great love for his family, Sheyla, the love of his life and his best friend, and he was so proud of his sons Paul, Mark and Aaron. He also extended his love to his friends and colleagues. He had a great love for flying, for the maintainers and test team. Dave Cooley lived with great love." 

According to James Brown, Lockheed Martin representative, Colonel Cooley was a rich man because of the love of his family, friends and colleagues. 

"Dave Cooley was the richest man I knew," Mr. Brown said during the service. "He had a reputation in the flight test community as an individual who was easy to work with, had consistently produced quality results and could be relied upon for the most important or most trivial tasks." 

His integrity was beyond reproach, Mr. Brown said. He possessed and used the most important tools a test pilot could have -- the ability to express his limitations when asked to perform and his candor to admit when he had made an error. 

Colonel Cooley was born Feb. 15, 1960, at Royal Air Force Mildenhall, England. He was a 1982 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he met his wife Sheyla. He began his flying career as an operational F-111 Aardvark pilot. 

In 1998, Colonel Cooley was selected to be the operations officer for the 410th Flight Test Squadron, responsible for developmental flight testing of the F-117 Nighthawk. From 2000 to 2003, he served as the vice commandant for the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School. After retiring from the Air Force in 2003, he was hired by Lockheed Martin as the F-117 chief test pilot. In September 2007, he became an F-22A test pilot at the F-22 Combined Test Force here. 

"We are here to honor a life, a life well lived," said Maj. Gen. David Eichhorn, Air Force Flight Test Center commander. "A week ago, the morning of March 25, a calm day with clear skies, it was a perfect day for a test pilot to take man and machine to their limits. The flight briefing was professional. The test pilot, Dave Cooley, was well prepared and well rehearsed. Nothing was out of the ordinary, until tragically and suddenly, the plane went down. But we all know that it is tragedy that brings out the best in people." 

General Eichhorn said once the plane was reported down, people took up their battle stations and went to work. Support was solicited from all over the Mojave Desert, including California Highway Patrol, Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake and Fort Irwin. 

"Everyone knew it was a life and death struggle," General Eichhorn said. "Time is of the essence and they have to give it their best shot. So they did. We just weren't destined to win it. While everyone dies, not everyone really lives. David Cooley really lived. Husband, father, Air Force officer, test pilot, he was all of these and more."


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