Amanda Lee, of Mounds View, Minn., is currently assigned to the “Gladiators” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 106. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 2009. Thomas Zimmerman, of Baltimore, Md., is currently assigned to the “Red Rippers” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 11. The Virginia native and UVA grad is a flight surgeon currently serving with the “Fighting Griffins” of Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 266.
Lee was one of several officers selected for the 2023 show season on Monday, including Lt. Katie Cook flew the squadron’s KC-130, lovingly named “Fat Albert,” from 2015 to 2016. Though she’s the first woman picked to fly a jet with the Blue Angels, she’s not the first female pilot with the demonstration team.
Once she completes a five-month training starting this fall at NAS Pensacola and Naval Air Facility El Centro, Calif., she’ll be one of the Blue Angels’ main F/A-18E/F Super Hornet pilots. She was commissioned in 2013, the Navy says. Lee first enlisted in the Navy back in 2007, and worked as an aviation electronics technician before joining the seaman-to-admiral commissioning program. Amanda Lee, of Mounds View, Minnesota, is currently assigned to the “Gladiators” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 106 and goes by the call sign “Stalin.” Navy’s Blue Angels is an Old Dominion University graduate based at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach. ( WAVY) - The first woman selected to fly as a demonstration jet pilot with the U.S.