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It is a bird. It’s a plane. In fact, it will be a woman on a plane the next time you look up.
The Navy announced Monday that Lt. Amanda Lee of Mounds View, Minnesota, will be the first female demonstration pilot of the Blue Angels, the second oldest aerobatic team in the world.
“We’ve had an overwhelming number of applicants from around the world this year,” said Captain Brian Kesselring, commander and flight leader of the Blue Angels, flying Boeing F / A-18 Super Hornets. “We look forward to training our fantastic new team members, passing the torch and seeing the amazing things this team will achieve in 2023.”
Hundreds of women have served with the Blue Angels over the years, but Lee, a 2013 graduate of Old Dominion University, is the first to fly a twin-engine, transportable and multifunctional fighter jet to the delight of the crowds. Navy Major Katie Cook became a Blue Angel pilot in 2015, piloting an extended-range tanker known as the “Fat Albert,” but she was not part of the demonstration team, as is Lee.
Lee and Lieutenant Cmdr. Thomas Zimmerman of Baltimore are the two pilots of the six-person crew that will be part of the 2023 show season.
Lee is currently assigned to the “Gladiators” of the 106th Attack Fighter Squadron (VFA), which is stationed at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach.
She will join the other 24 highly talented women who are part of the team today, Cmdr. Zach Harrell, spokesman for the Naval Air Force commander, told The Washington Post.
Lee enlisted in the Navy in 2007 while attending the University of Minnesota and working at a UPS location, graduating from the command of recruit training in Great Lakes, Illinois, according to the Navy.
As a recruit, she worked as an aviation electronics technician, a career that led her to be selected for a program that paves the way for sailors to become commissioned officers.
Lee received a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry from Old Dominion University and earned her commission in August 2013. By April 2016, she had become a naval aviator.
Just three years later, she was one of eight naval aviators made up exclusively of women who paid an air tribute at the funeral of one of the Navy’s first female aircraft pilots, retired Captain Rosemary Mariner.
Lee was not available for an interview.
To become a blue angel, aviators must be qualified for carriers with approximately 1,250 hours of tactical aircraft flight by Sept. 30, according to Harrell. They should also have completed an operational tour of the fleet along with advanced in-flight training with an average or higher compound score.
The Blue Angels are explored during each year’s Pensacola Beach Air Show, where the team shows off their flying skills, and then are selected at the end of the one-week event.
Lee and other elected members will report to the squadron in September for a two-month rotation period before embarking on an intensive five-month training program at NAS Pensacola and Naval Air Facility El Centro, Calif.
The Blue Angels have been around for over 70 years. The adm. Chester Nimitz ordered a flight demonstration team to be assembled towards the end of World War II. The crew was established to generate public interest in naval aviation and to increase the morale of the branch.
The team has performed for more than 450 million spectators since its inception.