First female fighter pilot assigned to Navy’s Blue Angels Demonstration Team

NAS PENSACOLA, Florida — The Navy has announced that for the first time in 76 years, a female pilot will join its famed Blue Angels demonstration team.

Lt. Amanda “Stalin” Lee is among six officers selected to join the team for the 2023 air show season, the Navy announced on Monday.

Lee is a F/A-18 pilot who enlisted in the Navy in 2007 and was an aviation electronics technician. She later was selected to join the Seaman-to-Admiral Commissioning Program, where she received a bachelor of science in biochemistry at Old Dominion University. She received her commission in 2013.

She became a naval aviator in 2016 and later completed deployments in support of Operation Inherent Resolve and other NATO exercises.

Lee is currently assigned to the “Gladiators” of Strike Fighter Squadron at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

According to The Associated Press, the team selects fighter pilots, support officers, and other officers to relieve departing members.

The other selected 2023 officers include:

F/A-18E/F demonstration pilot:

• Lt. Cmdr. Thomas Zimmerman, of Baltimore, Maryland.

Events coordinator:

• Lt. Cmdr. Brian Vaught, of Englewood, Colorado.

C-130 demonstration pilot:

• Marine Corps Capt. Samuel Petko, of Osceola, Indiana.

Maintenance officer:

• Lt. Cmdr. Greg Jones, of Cary, North Carolina.

Flight Surgeon:

• Lt. Philippe Warren, of Williamsburg, Virginia.

The team, named after a famed 1940s New York City nightclub, celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2021.

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