The Blue Angels: A Fly-By History

It began in 1946 when Admiral Chester W. Nimitz ordered the formation of a flight demonstration team to keep the public interested in naval aviation. The Blue Angels performed their first air show less than a year later in June 1946 at their home base, Naval Air Station (NAS) Jacksonville, Florida. Today, sixty years later, the Blue Angels are a worldwide phenomenon, exemplary representatives of Navy and Marine Corps aviation and international ambassadors of goodwill seen by fifteen million awestruck spectators each year. The Blue Angels: A Fly-By History tells the story of this high-flying phenomenon from its inception through the present day. Respected aviation writer Nicholas Veronico conducts readers through the Blue Angels history from the earliest Flight Leader, Roy "Butch" Voris, in his Grumman F6F Hellcat to the sleek McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) F/A-18 Hornet that todays Angels fly. Along the way this profusely illustrated volume revisits the Blue Angels changing aircraft and role, including their incarnation as the nucleus of a fighter squadron known "Satans Kittens" during the Korean War and their flying of the McDonnell Douglas A-4F Skyhawk II in the Seventies. Well over 300 million spectators have witnessed the Blue Angels airborne exploits. This book gives readers a close-up look at the remarkable team of flyers as it made history on the wing.