Navy Blue Angels visit Delmarva
The quiet of an off-season Monday morning in Chincoteague was broken by the roar of an F/A-18 Super Hornet.
The shiny blue-and-yellow jet belongs to the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels. Maj. Scott Laux (USMC), Blue Angel No. 7, the show narrator, was in the front seat. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Lilly Montana, Blue Angel No. 8, event coordinator, was in back.
They touched down at NASA Wallops Island Flight Facility Nov. 25, another stop on their winter tour of 32 air show sites.
Laux and Montana were headed to New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia Beach before getting a well-deserved Thanksgiving break.
The pair were driven to Ocean City, Md., for meetings with show organizers, airfield representatives and community leaders ahead of the Ocean City Air Show.
Laux and Montana will go over the team’s requirements, from the air space over the beach to their hotel. When they come back with the rest of the team in June, all the details will be in place and they can just focus on flying.
The OC Air Show will take place June 14-15. It will be the Blues’ first performance there since 2019.
The Blue Angels fly six F/A-18s, four in the signature diamond formation, plus two solo jets. The Marine Corps C-130, known as Fat Albert, will also be flying in the show.
While Laux and Montana are on the road, the others have a busy winter back home in Florida.
“They have been hard at work back in Pensacola flying, getting ready for the season,” Montana said. “We will all depart Jan. 6, for El Centro, Calif., for training.”
Every demonstration pilot will fly 120 sorties over the winter in preparation for the first show of the season in early March.
Laux and Montana both grew up in northern Virginia and have been to OC before, but never with the best seat in the house.
“We’re excited for the air show. Over-water air shows are always awesome, so we definitely encourage people to come out,” Laux said.
Bill Shull has been covering Lewes for the Cape Gazette since 2023. He comes to the world of print journalism after 40 years in TV news. Bill has worked in his hometown of Philadelphia, as well as Atlanta and Washington, D.C. He came to Lewes in 2014 to help launch WRDE-TV. Bill served as WRDE’s news director for more than eight years, working in Lewes and Milton. He is a 1986 graduate of Penn State University. Bill is an avid aviation and wildlife photographer, and a big Penn State football, Phillies and PGA Tour golf fan. Bill, his wife Jill and their rescue cat, Lucky, live in Rehoboth Beach.
