Lt. Amanda Lee will be the first female demonstration pilot for the Blue Angels, the Navy announced Monday.
Lee, who goes by the call sign “Stalin,” is among six officers that will join the Blue Angels for its 2023 show season, the demo squadron announced via Facebook.
Lee is currently assigned to the “Gladiators” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 106, which is stationed at Naval Air Station Oceana. The “Gladiators” fly F/A-18E and the F/A-18F Super Hornets, which is what the Blue Angels currently fly.
Although the Blue Angels accepted six officers this year, Lee is among the two that were accepted to fly the F/A-18E and F/A-18F Super Hornets. The other is Lt. Cmdr. Thomas Zimmerman, who is currently assigned to the “Red Rippers” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 11.
Lee enlisted in the Navy in 2007, according to a Navy Facebook post. She worked as an aviation electronics technician before participating in the seaman-to-admiral commissioning program.
She was commissioned in 2013.
As a naval aviator, Lee participated a 2019 all-female flyover honoring the first female Navy jet pilot Capt. Rosemary Mariner at her funeral.
While Lee is the first female jet pilot to be accepted into the Blue Angels, she is not the squadron’s first female pilot. Marine Maj. Katie Cook, who joined the Blue Angels in 2015 and flew the squadron’s KC-130, “Fat Albert” logistics aircraft.
