NEED FOR SPEED

Blue Angels Tap First Female Pilot for Aerial Acrobatics Squadron

Lt. Amanda Lee is the first female pilot in the Navy squadron’s 76-year history to be chosen for its elite aerial acrobatics team.

The Blue Angels, the U.S. Navy’s elite flight demonstration squadron, has chosen a woman to fly with the team for the first time in its 76-year history. Lt. Amanda Lee was selected to be a demonstration pilot, joining five other officers tapped for the upcoming 2023 air show season, according to a press release from the squadron. Lee, a Minnesota native who goes by the callsign “Stalin,” will report to the Angels in the fall, where she will undergo an intensive five-month training program. “I wouldn’t say that there’s a gender bias but it’s really, you need a certain mental toughness to get through the program,” Lee said in 2019, according to USA Today. “So you really need that strong will to get through, to succeed.” Lee, who will pilot a F/A-18E/F Super Hornet for the six-jet flight team, will be the first woman to fly in the Angels’ formation, but isn’t the squadron’s first female pilot ever. Marine Maj. Katie Higgins made headlines in 2014 after being chosen to fly the team’s transport plane, “Fat Albert.”