Blue Angels: A Fly-By History, The

 Author's Summary

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.

MWSA Review

MWSA 2006 Bronze Medal for Non-Fiction, Reference

Great Book About America’s favorite Aviators – The Blue Angels! Nicholas Veronico has produced a marvelous collection of photos, history, stories and reference data on America’s most popular aviation group in his coffee table sized book  The Blue Angels – A Fly-By History: Sixty Years Of Aerial Excellence.   It is sure to please all Blue Angel fans world wide. There is so much more to his book than some cold history about the group. This book gives you both the men and their flying machines in a perfect and balanced presentation.

The book not only looks great with many photos of the planes in action but the text digs deeply into the history and personalities involved with making this team a sixty year hit. The author uses some good editing and an easy to follow format to share this group’s story. It is obvious that there was some detailed research that enshrines this whole book project. It feels like a labor of love from the author and comes across in an entertaining style. The book is a tribute to a wonderful group of aviators.

It will sit proudly on your coffee table or in your book shelf but if you leave it lying around the office or the house, people will begin picking it up and browsing through it – the temptation is just too great to fondle and ogle it. The good thing about this book is that it is just as much fun to look at and read the second or the third time or even the first one hundred times you pick it up. It is a collector’s book to be cherished and displayed.

Reviewed by: Bill McDonald (2006)