Alumni spotlight

U.S. NAVY BLUE ANGELS

Lieutenant Amanda Lee, an Irondale High School alumna, has been named by the U.S. Navy Blue Angels as the first woman pilot for the squadron. LT Amanda Lee will serve as a demonstration pilot for the 2023 air show season.

See this excerpt from "Pensacola News Journal" :

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. "

Lee grew up in Minnesota, working 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.