Blue Angels headline Sun ’n Fun airshows

Attendees at Sun ’n Fun Thursday received a special treat, when the team arrived at noon. For more than an hour and 15 minutes, the Blue Angels maneuvered around and above the airport, as single aircraft and in formations, as the pilots oriented themselves to the local airspace and verified reference points for various maneuvers that they had selected earlier from satellite images.

U.S. Navy Capt. Eric Doyle, commanding officer of the Blue Angels this year and its flight leader, was selected by the chief of naval air training. According to the Blue Angels website, the elite unit’s commander must have at least 3,000 tactical jet flight hours and have commanded a tactical jet squadron. Doyle flies the No. 1 jet. The chief of naval air training also selects the Blue Angels’ executive officer, a naval flight officer who must have at least 1,250 flight hours in tactical jets.

A total of 16 officers voluntarily serve with the Blue Angels. There are specialists in maintenance, administration, aviation medicine, public affairs, and supply. Officers typically serve two years with the team and then return to the fleet.

Around 100 sailors and Marines comprise the Blue Angels’ enlisted maintenance and support team; about 45 team members travel to each show site. Enlisted personnel must be recommended by their current commanding officer; those selected volunteer for a three-year tour with the squadron and then, like the officers, return to the fleet.

As the website notes, the history of the Blue Angels dates to 1946, when Admiral Chester Nimitz, chief of naval operations, had the idea of creating a flight demonstration team that would raise the public’s interest in naval aviation and boost Navy morale. The team began performing precision combat maneuvers in the F6F Hellcat before transitioning to the F8F Bearcat and, later, the F9F Panther, the team's first fighter jet.

During the 1950s, the Blue Angels added aerobatic maneuvers as they flew the F9F Cougar and the F11F Tiger. The first six-airplane delta formation, still flown today, was introduced at this time. By the end of the 1960s the team was flying the F–4 Phantom, the only two-seat aircraft flown by the delta formation. The Blue Angels transitioned to the smaller, lighter A–4 Skyhawk in 1974 and in 1986 began flying the Boeing F/A–18 Hornet.