The Blue Angels are the highlight each year at the Miramar Air Show, but even if you’ve seen them perform in person, you’ve never seen them like this before.
A new documentary called “The Blue Angels” takes you in and outside the cockpit of the F/A-18 Super Hornets and puts you at eye level with the pilots.
The documentary also gives you an in-depth look at the Blue Angels’ 2022 season, from training to performances to the selection process, and introduces you to the large team of people responsible for keeping the pilots safe in the sky.
Lt. Commander Monica Borza is one of those people. She served as the flight surgeon for the Blue Angels during the 2022 season, becoming the 4th woman in the team’s history to do so.
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Borza said her desire to join the Blue Angels was first sparked at six years old when her dad took her and her sister to see the squadron perform in Virginia Beach.
“I feel as though there was a little fire that was planted in my heart that day, that I knew I could maybe be in that jet one day, maybe be a part of that team,” Borza said.
Borza's journey really took flight after becoming a doctor in the Navy.
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“As a doctor in the Navy, you can apply to be a flight surgeon, and to be a flight surgeon they send you through flight school,” she said. “So, you get the same flight training as all the Navy and Marine Corps aviators from day one.”
Borza's first squadron was VFMA-314 at MCAS Miramar, also known as the Black Knights. She said they encouraged her to apply for the Blue Angels, which she did. She was selected for the position, which not only entails being the team’s doctor but also the lead safety officer on the ground.
“I am constantly in communication with all six of them during the flight demonstration, listening for certain cues, looking for certain altitudes or airspeed or configurations even on the jets for certain maneuvers that they need to have in order for them to be safe. And I will speak up if something is not safe, you know, because this is life or death when we're flying,” Borza said.
She said safety was also a major consideration when it came to shooting the documentary.
“That was a discussion as well — having cameras around — because we are already in an inherently risky environment,” she said. “And then when you're flying that demonstration, there are no second takes. And the film crew understood that. And they really, I think, they captured that and worked around us without interfering at all.”
The season documented in the movie was Borza’s last with the team. Most assignments with the Blue Angels are for just two years.
She is now a Dermatology resident at Naval Medical Center San Diego.
“I'm no longer studying, 'How does the F-18 fly?' and the demonstration manual and 'Where should that just be at that time.' Now, I'm studying skin disease and studying, 'How can I recognize this and treat it properly?'" Borza said. “And the way I have kind of applied what I've learned on the Blue Angels to everyday life now is I, at the end of the day, debrief myself and I say, 'What did I do that wasn't my best today? and 'How can I fix it and move forward and do better tomorrow?'”
You can watch “The Blue Angels” now streaming on Prime Video and in theaters for a limited time. See the Blue Angels perform live at the 2024 Miramar Air Show from September 27 to 29.
