Amanda Lee named first female pilot in US navy aviation team

The US Navy's famed aerial display team, the Blue Angels, named Lieutenant Amanda Lee on Monday as its first female pilot to fly fighter aircraft.

Lee, of Mounds View, Minnesota, was one of six new officers selected for the 2023 air show season, the navy said in a statement.

After a five-month training program, she will fly F/A-18 "Super Hornet" for the navy's elite demonstration team founded in 1946.

Lee was commissioned as an officer in 2013 after being trained as an aviation electronics technician, the navy said.

She became a naval aviator in 2016.

Lee, whose call sign is "Stalin," will be the first woman to fly fighter aircraft for the Blue Angels.

Another woman, Marine Major Katie Cook, joined the Blue Angels in 2015 and flew C-130 support aircraft known as "Fat Albert."