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."