Additional Experience Will Help In Training New Pilots

A normal tour for a Blue Angels pilot is two years. But this year, with sequestration, is anything but normal.

So some of the team's pilots will have their tours extended by a year, under a program announced recently by the U.S. Navy. The Pensacola News Journal reports that the move is a safety measure that will allow more experienced pilots to train the new recruits that would fly during 2014.

Speaking at the Greater Pensacola Chamber of Commerce Wednesday, Navy Cmdr Tom Frosch, who joined the team last November, said he and Navy Lt. Cmdr. Nate Barton requested the extension because they will not have flown an air show season in 2013, which would allow them to prepare to train new team members who would normally report in the fall and begin practicing over the winter.

Frosch said it was "the lowest-risk thing to do ... to freeze the one through seven positions" so that "everybody gets another year to fill that void and not miss a season."

"We haven't been shut down since the Korean War in the 1950's," Frosch said. "This is unprecedented."

(Blue Angels image from file)

FMI: www.blueangels.navy.mil