Team members

All team members, both officer and enlisted, pilots and staff officers, come from the ranks of regular Navy and United States Marine Corps units. The demonstration pilots and narrator are made up of Navy and USMC Naval Aviators. Pilots serve two to three years,^[2] and position assignments are made according to team needs, pilot experience levels, and career considerations for members.
The officer selection process requires pilots and support officers (flight surgeon, events coordinator, maintenance officer, supply officer, and public affairs officer) wishing to become Blue Angels to apply formally via their chain-of-command, with a personal statement, letters of recommendation, and flight records. Navy and Marine Corps F/A-18 demonstration pilots and naval flight officers are required to have a minimum of 1,250 tactical jet hours and be carrier-qualified. Marine Corps C-130 demonstration pilots are required to have 1,200 flight hours and be an aircraft commander.^[13]
Applicants "rush" the team at one or more airshows, paid out of their own finances, and sit in on team briefs, post-show activities, and social events. Rushes are asked to tell a joke prior to the brief and are graded by the team as part of the rigorous selection process. Team members vote in secret on the next year's members, with no accountability to the higher Navy authority why an applicant was or was not selected. Selections must be unanimous. There have been female and racial minority staff officers as official Blue Angel members. The most recent minority Blue Angel pilot was LCDR Keith Hoskins on the 2000 team.^[14] Flight surgeons serve a two-year term. They act as the team recorder during air shows and help oversee emergency response planning with the various air show planners. The first female Blue Angel flight surgeon was LT Tamara Schnurr, who was a member of the 2001 team.^[15]
The team leader (#1) is the Commanding Officer and is always a Navy Commander, who may be promoted to Captain mid-tour if approved for Captain by the selection board. Pilots of numbers 2–7 are Navy Lieutenants or Lieutenant Commanders, or Marine Corps Captains or Majors. The number 7 pilot narrates for a year, and then typically flies Opposing and then Lead Solo the following two years, respectively. The number 3 pilot moves to the number 4 (slot) position for his second year. Blue Angel No. 4 serves as the demonstration safety officer, due largely to the perspective he is afforded from the slot position within the formation, as well as his status as a second-year demonstration pilot. There are a number of other officers in the squadron, including a Naval Flight Officer, the USMC C-130 pilots, a Maintenance Officer, an Administrative Officer, and a Flight Surgeon. Enlisted members range from E-4 to E-9 and perform all maintenance, administrative, and support functions. They serve three to four years in the squadron.^[2] After serving with the Blues, members return to fleet assignments.
Members of the 2017 U.S. Navy Blue Angels are [1]:

• Flying Blue Angel No. 1, Commander Ryan Bernacchi, USN (Commanding Officer/Flight Leader)
• Flying Blue Angel No. 2, Lieutenant Damon Kroes, USN (Right Wing)
• Flying Blue Angel No. 3, Lieutenant Nate Scott, USN (Left Wing)
• Flying Blue Angel No. 4, Lieutenant Lance Benson, USN (Slot)
• Flying Blue Angel No. 5, Commander Frank Weisser, USN (Lead Solo)
• Flying Blue Angel No. 6 Lieutenant Tyler Davies, USN (Opposing Solo)
• Flying Blue Angel No. 7, Lieutenant Brandon Hempler, USN (Advance Pilot/Narrator)
• Events Coordinator, Blue Angel No. 8, Lieutenant Dave Steppe, USN
• Flying Fat Albert, Major Mark Hamilton, USMC
• Flying Fat Albert, Major Mark Montgomery, USMC
• Flying Fat Albert, Major Kyle Maschner, USMC
• Executive Officer, Commander Matt Kaslik, USN
• Maintenance Officer, Lieutenant Samuel Rose, USN
• Flight Surgeon, Lieutenant Juan Guerra, USN
• Administrative Officer, Lieutenant Junior Grade Timothy Hawkins, USN
• Supply Officer, Lieutenant Bryan Pace, USN
• Public Affairs Officer, Lieutenant Joe Hontz, USN

Commanding officer

Commander Ryan Bernacchi

Commander Ryan Bernacchi joined the Blue Angels in September 2015. He has accumulated more than 3,000 flight hours and 600 carrier-arrested landings, and is a graduate of the U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN), NAS Fallon, Nevada. After graduating, he joined the TOPGUN staff as an instructor pilot and served as the Navy and Marine Corps subject matter expert in GPS guided weapons. Ryan served as a Federal Executive Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. His decorations include the Meritorious Service Medal, one Individual Air Medal with Combat "V" (three Strike Flight), four Navy Commendation Medals, one with Combat "V," and numerous unit, campaign, and service awards.

Training and weekly routine

Annual winter training takes place at NAF El Centro, California, where new and returning pilots hone skills learned in the fleet. During winter training, the pilots fly two practice sessions per day, six days a week, in order to fly the 120 training missions needed to perform the demonstration safely. Separation between the formation of aircraft and their maneuver altitude is gradually reduced over the course of about two months in January and February. The team then returns to their home base in Pensacola, Florida, in March, and continues to practice throughout the show season. A typical week during the season has practices at NAS Pensacola on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. The team then flies to its show venue for the upcoming weekend on Thursday, conducting "circle and arrival" orientation maneuvers upon arrival. The team flies a "practice" airshow at the show site on Friday. This show is attended by invited guests but is often open to the general public. The main airshows are conducted on Saturdays and Sundays, with the team returning home to NAS Pensacola on Sunday evenings after the show. Monday is the Blues' day off.

History

1940s

The original team insignia

On 24 April 1946 Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Chester Nimitz issued a directive ordering the formation of a flight exhibition team to boost Navy morale, demonstrate naval air power, and maintain public interest in naval aviation. However, an underlying mission was to help the Navy generate public and political support for a larger allocation of the shrinking defense budget. In April of that year, Rear Admiral Ralph Davison personally selected Lieutenant Commander Roy Marlin "Butch" Voris, a World War II fighter ace, to assemble and train a flight demonstration team, naming him Officer-in-Charge and Flight Leader. Voris selected three fellow instructors to join him (Lt. Maurice "Wick" Wickendoll, Lt. Mel Cassidy, and Lt. Cmdr. Lloyd Barnard, veterans of the War in the Pacific), and they spent countless hours developing the show. The group perfected its initial maneuvers in secret over the Florida Everglades so that, in Voris' words, "if anything happened, just the alligators would know". The team's first demonstration before Navy officials took place on 10 May 1946 and was met with enthusiastic approval.

Grumman F6F-5 Hellcats in 1946

On 15 June Voris led a trio of Grumman F6F-5 Hellcats, specially modified to reduce weight and painted sea blue with gold leaf trim, through their inaugural 15-minute-long performance at their Florida home base, Naval Air Station Jacksonville.^[1] The team employed a North American SNJ Texan, painted and configured to simulate a Japanese Zero, to simulate aerial combat. This aircraft was later painted yellow and dubbed the "Beetle Bomb". This aircraft is said to have been inspired by one of the Spike Jones' Murdering the Classics series of musical satires, set to the tune (in part) of the William Tell Overture as a thoroughbred horse race scene, with "Beetle Bomb" being the "trailing horse" in the lyrics.
The team thrilled spectators with low-flying maneuvers performed in tight formations, and (according to Voris) by "keeping something in front of the crowds at all times. My objective was to beat the Army Air Corps. If we did that, we'd get all the other side issues. I felt that if we weren't the best, it would be my naval career." The Blue Angels' first public demonstration also netted the team its first trophy, which sits on display at the team's current home at NAS Pensacola.