PENSACOLA, FLORIDA - A Persian Gulf War veteran will lead the Blue Angels precision flying team next year, the Navy announced Tuesday. <br>
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Cmdr. Russell J. Bartlett, a Georgia native and commanding officer of Strike Fighter Squadron 195 in Atsugi, Japan, will take command of the flight demonstration squadron for the next two years, flying the No. 1 jet, after the 2002 air show season ends in November. <br>
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The Blue Angels, a six-plane team based at Pensacola Naval Air Station, have performed for more than 350 million people since 1946 as part of their recruiting and public relations mission. <br>
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Bartlett flew 33 combat missions during Operation Desert Storm from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt in the F/A-18 Hornet, the jet also flown by the Blue Angels. <br>
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Rear Adm. John E. Boyington, chief of naval air training at Corpus Christi, Texas, selected Bartlett from among six finalists. Other Blue Angel pilots are selected by the team itself. <br>
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Bartlett was born into an Army family at Fort Benning, Ga., and spent most of his childhood on Nantucket Island in Massachusetts. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1983 with a degree in aerospace engineering and received flight training in Pensacola. <br>
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Bartlett won international recognition for his work on integrating unmanned aircraft into the Navy's arsenal while an associate fellow with the Chief of Naval Operations' Strategic Studies Group in the mid-1990s.
