Inside Stories US NAVY AEROBATIC TEAM ANNIVERSARY
Celebrating 75 years since its creation and first displays during 1946, the illustrious Blue Angels aerobatic team of the US Navy has a distinguished history and continuing pedigree, as Malcolm V Lowe recounts
The seeds of what became today’s iconic Blue Angels Flight Demonstration Squadron of the US Navy were sown in the immediate aftermath of World War Two. The Chief of Naval Operations, the veteran Admiral Chester W Nimitz, recognised the need to maintain peacetime public interest and pride in naval aviators, that had rightly been engendered during the war.An ideal way to do this was to create an official aerobatic team that would fly the navy’s frontline fighters and appear at public events.
During April 1946, the necessary paperwork for the formation of the new flight demonstration team was created. Selected to lead this special unit was a naval aviator with exceptional pedigree. He was Lt Cmdr Roy Marlin ‘Butch’ Voris, who had flown combat missions in World War Two. This included tours aboard the aircraft carriers USS Enterprise and Hornet in the Pacific; at first piloting Grumman F4F Wildcats with US Navy fighter squadron VF-10. He later flew Gr…
