First female Blue Angel jet pilot is more than a celebration. It's history long overdue.
An incoming Blue Angels pilot broke a barrier last week that wasn't just the speed of sound.
U.S. Navy Lt. Amanda Lee was named the first-ever female F-18 fighter pilot to become a Blue Angels team member Monday.
Whether a "glass ceiling" that resulted in the Blues going decades without a woman in the cockpit of an F-18 was real or perceived, Lee's appointment to the Blues has shattered it.
"Yeah," said retired U.S. Navy Capt. Lee Hansen. "It's a big deal."
The retired captain, like Lee, is a woman of firsts. Hansen was the first woman to command an air wing in the Navy, having previously served as the commanding officer for Training Squadron 4 based at Naval Air Station Pensacola.
To see other women, and in particular another female aviator, take groundbreaking strides within the military makes Hansen proud, because it's hard for her to forget what it was like in the early 1980s for women in the Navy.
"I would walk into the ready room and everyone would fall quiet, because I was the only woman in the squadron," Hansen recalled about the first time she went to flight school in 1983. "Fast forward about 15 years, and I would walk into the ready room and everyone would fall silent and come to attention because I was their commanding officer.
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"I always thought that it was an interesting closing of the circle — if you will — that the reaction was kind of the same but for completely different reasons," she continued. "It made me feel that we were moving forward, that women were being given opportunities to compete equally. So, I think that was a really important step, as this recent selection is for the Blue Angels."
Hundreds of women have served with the Blue Angels in various capacities over the last 55 years.
But Lee, of Mounds View, Minnesota, will be the first woman to fly in formation as a demonstration pilot. She will pilot a F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and perform death-defying maneuvers above crowds of thousands all over the country.
Retired U.S. Navy Capt. Tim "Lucky" Kinsella said he's seen his fair share of Blue Angels air shows over the years from inside and outside the cockpit, and during his three-year stint as commander of NAS Pensacola, he worked intimately with the team.
However, even after countless dealings with the Blues over the years, he is particularly excited to see them during the 2023 air show season.
"I can't wait to see the faces on the young girls in the audience, the young women in the audience," Kinsella said. "Now, there are people in the audience that can see a Blue Angel that looks like them for the first time, and that is so powerful. And it's so meaningful that those young girls can see that and they know that they can reach for the stars — that there's no ceiling that they can't break, that everything is open to them."
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Kinsella said was on hand in the 1990s to witness the first class of women to graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy and go into combat roles, he said.
"The joy that those women had knowing that they would be able to stand beside men, stand beside their brothers, and go to combat with them and serve their country in the way that they wanted to serve, it was just a pure joy from them that they were able to do that," Kinsella recalled. "And then once they do it, you realize how stupid were we not to have done this so many years before, that it is only our own prejudices and our own paradigms that allow us not to make these right decisions."
Kinsella and Hansen both emphasized a key point for people to remember — Lee earned her spot on the Blue Angels not because she is a woman but because of her abilities as a pilot.
"The very worst thing would be to select the person who wasn't good enough, and then you just sort of reinforce the stereotypes that some people might have that women are not good fighter pilots," Hansen said. "They needed to pick exactly the right person, and this gal sure seems like she's the right person."
That Lee had the right stuff for the Blues was confirmed to the News Journal by Vice Adm. Sara Joyner, who currently serves with the Joint Staff at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., as director for Force Structure, Resources and Assessment, which provides analysis and advice to the Chairman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
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"She is the perfect choice," Joyner wrote via email. "If we had to wait for the right strike fighter pilot to be the first female Blue Angel Jet pilot on the team for almost 30 years, then the wait was worth it."
Joyner, the first woman to command a U.S. Navy strike fighter squadron, wrote a letter of recommendation for the Lee during her Blue Angels application process.
"When I met her for the first time, I was struck by her wonderful, unique and inspirational story, and I knew right away that she would be great both inside and outside of the jet," Joyner's letter state. "Her performance on the VFA-106 demo team proved that she could meet the rigorous standards required in the cockpit, and combined with her personal attributes, I became convinced that she was the right aviator to be selected to join the Blues."
Lee, who the Navy said was unavailable for an interview last week, grew up in Minnesota. She worked for UPS while attending the University of Minnesota in Duluth and decided to enlist in the Navy before graduating from Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Illinois, in 2007.
Her successes as an aviation electronics technician led to her selection into the Seaman-to-Admiral Commissioning Program. She was designated a naval aviator in April 2016.
While Lee is the first-ever female fighter pilot on the Blue Angels' jet demonstration squadron, she is not the first female pilot to join the Blue Angels. That distinction goes to U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Katie Ann (Higgins) Cook, who flew the team's C-130 Fat Albert transport plane from 2014 to 2016.
"There are hardly any women that are interested in flying for the Blue Angels," Cook told the News Journal. "And then, they also have to be the right person and the right pick for the team that year. So the selection of possible (candidates) was very, very small.
"I'm not surprised that it took this long," Cook continued, about inclusion of a female jet pilot on the Blues. "But I am grateful that they have the right people leading the team and on the team right now to make this historic selection for Lt. Lee."
After earning her naval aviator wings, Lee was deployed to the USS Harry S. Truman in support of Dynamic Force Employment Operation INHERENT RESOLVE, as well as numerous exercises with NATO allies.
In 2019, Lee flew in the first ever all-female flyover that was part of the funeral service for retired Navy Capt. Rosemary Mariner, one of the first female Navy jet pilots and the first woman to command an operational naval aviation squadron.
Hansen was at the funeral and saw Lee fly over.
"Many of us who knew Rosemary attended the funeral. And what was amazing for all of us, who were sort of old pilots and (naval flight officers), was that there was a fly-by with four F-18s flown by women," Hansen said. "We were sort of all excited about that. The things that we did in the '80s and '90s and by some of the women in the '70s prepared the way for these women to do what they do today. It was really cool."
Colin Warren-Hicks can be reached at colinwarrenhicks@pnj.com or 850-435-8680.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: First female Blue Angel F-18 pilot U.S. Navy Lt. Amanda Lee makes history
