Lockheed Martin test pilot David P. Cooley was killed on 25 March in the crash of an F-22 aircraft, while he was flying a test mission from Edwards AFB, California.
Cooley was born on 15 February 1960 at RAF Mildenhall, the US Air Force base in England where his father was assigned. He finished high school in Belleville, Illinois, and graduated from the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1982 with a degree in aeronautical engineering.
Early in his military career, he flew, and then later instructed students in, the F-111. In 1993, he transitioned to flight testing and conducted tests with the F-15 and F-117.
In 1998, Cooley was selected to be the operations officer of the F-117 Combined Test Force and was responsible for continued developmental flight testing of the Nighthawk. From 2001 to 2003, he served as the vice commandant of the USAF Test Pilot School at Edwards AFB.
Cooley retired from the Air Force in 2003 and was hired by Lockheed Martin as the F-117 chief test pilot. He joined the F-22 Raptor team in 2006 and was part of the F-22 Combined Test Force.
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