Navy pilot from isles joins Blue Angels

Navy Lt. Matt Suyderhoud, who grew up in Hawaii Kai and flies an F/A-18 Super Hornet, is the newest member of Navy’s Blue Angels 2015 flight demonstration team.

He will be performing above Kaneohe Bay during a Blue Angels show planned for Oct. 17-18, 2015.

Suyderhoud and his twin brother, Johann, are 2001 graduates of Maryknoll School. Their father, Jack Suyderhoud, is a professor at the University of Hawaii’s Shidler College of Business.

The squadron selected an executive officer, three F/A-18 demonstration pilots, an events coordination officer, two C-130 demonstration pilots, a flight surgeon and a supply officer to join the 2015 team, the Navy said in a news release.

Navy and Marine Corps officers annually submit applications to be a part of the coveted positions. To qualify, naval aviators must have an aircraft carrier qualification and a minimum of 1,250 flight hours in tactical jets. Demonstration pilots like Suyderhoud serve two years with the squadron.

The flying aerobatic team performs about 70 shows a year throughout the United States.

Suyderhoud, 31, of Honolulu, is currently assigned to Training Squadron 22 at Naval Air Station Kingsville, Texas. He is a 2005 graduate of Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Mo.

In 2010, Suyderhoud visited Hawaii as a member of Strike Fighter Squadron 154, the Black Knights, assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, one of 32 ships participating in the biennial Rim of the Pacific naval exercises.

"It’s great," he said in an interview. "I get a lot of flying time, and to work with other countries and ships. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do."

The Blue Angels select finalists to interview at the team’s home base at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla., during the week of the Pensacola Beach Air Show. The team makes selections at the conclusion of the interview week.

A total of 16 officers voluntarily serve with the Blue Angels, flying the 16 F-18 Hornets assigned to the unit.

"All of our finalists this year are incredible examples of some of the finest officers in the Navy and Marine Corps, from both the aviation community and the fleet," said Lt. Cmdr. John Hiltz, Right Wing pilot and the applications officer for the 2014 team, in a news release. "What was most important for us — regardless of anything else — was to select the most qualified individuals for the team to represent the more than 540,000 sailors and Marines deployed around the world, around the clock. And I’m happy to say that we’ve done that."

In college, the twin Suyderhoud brothers excelled in ice hockey and as Navy flight students in 2006 helped a team from Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., sweep the annual Armed Forces Hockey Classic tournament in Las Vegas.

Also joining the Blue Angels team will be first female pilot in the organization’s 68-year history, Marine Capt. Katie Higgins. She will be one of two pilots of the Blue Angels’ "Fat Albert" C-130 cargo plane and is serving at the Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron at the Marine Corps Air Station in Cherry Point, N.C.

The Hercules C-130 is flown by an all-Marine Corps crew consisting of three pilots and five enlisted personnel.

The new team members will begin practice demonstrations this January in El Centro, Calif. Each pilot must complete 120 flights during winter training in order to perform before the public.

The Blue Angels’ 2014 season will end in November with a three-day air show over Pensacola Naval Air Station.