Lieutenant Colonel (ret) Dave “Tarp” Tarpley

Lieutenant Colonel (ret) Dave “Tarp” Tarpley, age 75, lost his battle with esophageal cancer and “slipped the surly bonds of Earth” one last time 15 Mar 2025, at his Mountain Air Park home surrounded by family and friends.

Dave is survived by his wife Elizabeth Tarpley, step-daughter Brittany and her fiancé Erik, and daughters from a previous marriage, Erin and Lauren.

Born David Andrew Tarpley on September 3, 1949, his lifelong passion was airplanes and flying.  He loved building, testing, maintaining, tinkering with and of course, flying airplanes, especially if it was one of his builds!  Afterwards, he absolutely enjoyed partying with those who shared these flying escapades with him.

Strangely, his career began not in the Air Force but in the Army shortly after high school.  For several years, he proudly served in several armored divisions and was a Huey gunner on the Korean DMZ. After his Army stint, Tarp was now ready for college with the aim of becoming an Air Force pilot.  He liked aviation history, so it was natural for him to get a BA degree in history from the University of Kansas, Wichita.  While at school, Dave was also a ROTC cadet and began his flying with a first flight on 31 January 1970 in a Cessna 150.

After college, he went straight to the Air Force and graduated from pilot training in1975. Throughout his long career, his guiding vision was to never ever take a non-flying assignment and fly important missions with as little oversight as possible. Due to these inclinations and his skills, the Air Force often selected him for special, classified and black operations, and much of his career and airplanes are not known except by those he served with. The standout portions of his career that we can write about was commanding an AC-130H gunship during the 1983 Grenada war, qualifying in the classic DC-3 and then standing up the initial El Salvadoran AC-47 Spooky Gunship squadron, graduating from the National Test Pilot school, being the prime test pilot for Project 46 (the certification of the MC-130E Combat Talon 1 for picking up 4 to 6 people using the  Fulton Recovery System), and of course, winning the 1992 Sun-N-Fun Air Race (160 to 200mph class) in the experimental White Lightning.

After his Air Force career, he held several classified flying positions as well as a 4-year stint at Lockheed as a test pilot for the new C-130J. He really enjoyed the latter as he got to check out foreign crews around the world in this stretched and highly upgraded C-130.

In addition to his military and contract flying, Tarp always owned a private fleet of aircraft tucked away in a hangar somewhere so he could fly and tinker with airplanes on his off time. Some of his favorites were the Acro Sport, the Baby Great Lakes, the short-winged Cessna Vagabond, the experimental White Lightning, and of course, his beloved J-3 Super Cruiser.

In his flying career, which spanned almost 55 years, he flew over 17,000 hours in 30 plus aircraft types.

Extended time away from home on often classified missions certainly didn’t make for an ideal social life. However, through a chance flight together, he finally met and later married Liz, the love of his life. They would eventually settle in Mountain Air Park, Cleveland, Georgia, where Tarp would build a huge hanger to house his fleet and projects, Liz could pursue her passion for horses and animals, and they could play with others that shared their passions. Friends visiting Tarp could always count on flying one of his most recent projects and then talking airplanes and life over a drink or two (or three….)  

Throughout his life, Tarp often displayed a tough exterior and was infamous for his fights against stupid rules and the authorities that issued them. However, when that disappeared amongst friends, he had a large, generous spirit, a famous deep singing voice and often a charming, humorous demeanor.  A true character and a legend within the special ops and classified worlds, Tarp touched many with his passion for flying and then celebrating – neither of which will ever be the same without him!

Graveside services are scheduled for 10:30 A.M. Friday, March 21, 2025, at Georgia National Cemetery in Canton, Georgia.

The family will receive friends from 5:00 - 7:00 P.M. Thursday at the funeral home.

To share a memory or to leave an online condolence for the family, please visit www.barrettfh.com

Barrett Funeral Home of Cleveland | (706) 865-3101