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It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It will actually be a woman on a plane the next time you look up.
The Navy announced Monday that Lt. Amanda Lee of Mounds View, Minn., will be the first female demonstration pilot for the Blue Angels, the world’s second-oldest aerobatic team.
“This year we had a tremendous number of applicants from all over the world,” said Capt. Brian Kesselring, commanding officer and flight leader of the Blue Angels, which fly Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornets. “We look forward to training our fantastic new team members, passing the torch and watching the incredible 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 portable twin-engine multi-role combat aircraft to the delight of crowds. Marine Corps Maj. Katie Cook became a Blue Angel pilot in 2015, flying an extended-range tanker known as Fat Albert, but she was not part of the demonstration team, as Lee is.
Lee and Lieut. Thomas Zimmerman of Baltimore are the two pilots of the six-man crew that will be part of the 2023 show season.
Lee is currently assigned to the Gladiators of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 106, which is stationed at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach.
She will join the 24 other extremely talented women who serve on the team today, Cmdr. Zach Harrell, spokesman for the commander of the Naval Air Forces, told The Washington Post.
Lee enlisted in the Navy in 2007 while attending the University of Minnesota and worked at the UPS location, graduating from Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Illinois, according to the Navy.
As an enlisted man, she served as an avionics technician, a career that led to her being selected into a program that paves the way for sailors to become officers.
Lee earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Old Dominion University and received her commission in August 2013. By April 2016, she became a naval aviator.
Just three years later, she was one of eight female naval aviators who paid their respects in the air at the funeral of one of the Navy’s first female jet pilots, retired Capt. Rosemary Mariner.
Lee was not available for an interview.
To become a Blue Angel, airmen must be carrier qualified with approximately 1,250 tactical flight hours by Sept. 30 of the year they apply, Harrell said. They must also have completed a fleet operational tour along with advanced flight training with an average or higher overall score.
The Blue Angels are scouted during each year’s Pensacola Beach Air Show, where the team showcases their flying skills, and then selected at the end of the week-long event.
Lee and other select members will report to the squadron in September for a two-month period before beginning an intensive five-month training program at NAS Pensacola and Naval Air Facility El Centro, California.
The Blue Angels have been around for over 70 years. Admiral Chester Nimitz ordered a flight demonstration team to be assembled toward the end of World War II. The Air Crew was created to generate public interest in naval aviation and boost the morale of the branch.
The team has played in front of more than 450 million viewers since its inception.
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