A Collection of Blue Angels Yearbooks and Lithos

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BLUE ANGELS 2025 LITHOGRAPH

These are very hard to come by. I feel very lucky to have received one.

1987 BLUE ANGELS YEARBOOK

This is an elusive item. The first year the F-18 was used for airshow demos by the Blues. I've been searching since 1987 for a copy of this yearbook, and finally, in 2021 one became available. It took 34 years to finally add one to my collection.

2015 FAT ALBERT LITHO

2011 FAT ALBERT LITHO

2010 BLUE ANGELS LITHO

The Blues are seen flying over the Point Piedras Blancas Lighthouse on the Big Sur coast of California

1983 BLUE ANGELS LITHO

The 83 litho features the Blues in the A-4 Skyhawk flying past Diamond Head, Honolulu, Hawaii

1984 BLUE ANGELS LITHO

The '84 litho featured a photo of the Blues in the A-4 Skyhawk passing in front of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.

2009 BLUE ANGELS LITHO

The 2009 litho features a photo shot in Cleveland, Ohio.

I've been a Blue Angels fan since I was a kid. I remember watching the Blues fly an airshow in the 1960's at Brackett Airport in La Verne, California using the F-11F Tiger. They flew this as a remote show, launching from another airfield, as Brackett was too small for the team to operate from. We have 8mm movies of that show.

I began collecting Blue Angels yearbooks in 1975. I discovered the yearbooks while at the Point Mugu Airshow. They were sold by service organizations like the Navy League at the airshow. The Blues would supply the yearbooks, and the Navy League would sell them to raise funds. This practice changed when the team switched to the F-18, and I had to figure out where to get them. Luckily, over the years, I've been able to figure that out. I've had the good fortune over the years to be able to meet several members from the Blue Angels squadron and they are usually very friendly and accomodating. You have to be in the right place, at the right time for that to happen.

Sometimes, the current year's yearbook or litho print is listed for sale on e-bay from private individuals. In 2014, the yearbook was selling for over $120.00 on e-bay! To me that is highway robbery. I feel sorry for the people who pay this price, knowing that the very same item is available, free for the asking, from the right source.

These yearbooks are produced by the current demo aircraft manufacturer. In the A-4 years they were produced by McDonnell-Douglas and later on, with the F-18, Boeing has done the honor. They are designed in conjunction with members of the Blues team.

After searching online for reference information about these yearbooks and lithos, and not being able to find anything that shows the yearbooks, I decided to make this blog and feature the cover of the yearbooks, and the lithos that I have been able to collect.

Getting the images of each item ready for presentation on this blog takes time. I found that when I photographed the items and posted them something was missing. The quality suffered and was not as good compared to what it could be. So I approached it from a different direction and tried a much more intensive process to achieve the best look. The yearbooks and lithos are scanned and photographed , put into photoshop and adjusted for the best reproduction appearance online.

Sometimes I've had to break these down into their basic elements and 'rebuild them' so-to-speak, actually recreating the graphic design, building a new graphic element that matches the existing item.

Almost all of the lithos are done this way. Scanned and/or photographed and broken down into seperate elements, adjusted and reassembled. The lithos are usually scanned on a standard scanner in multiple smaller passes, as they are too large for the entire 16x20 print to fit on the scanner's 9x12 window.

Each litho is broken down into 8 or more smaller sections. Then they are reassembled in the computer into the original 16x20 size. New type is set in place to match the original used on the print. This gives a much cleaner look to the type. The photo on each litho is fit together from seperate pieces and assembled back into one full-size piece and adjusted for best on-line viewing. This assembly can become quite tricky to accomplish and be undetectable in the finished image.

It takes time to do all of this but the finished items look much better after this process than just using a photograph of the litho. Because of this process items will be posted as time allows.

I have also discovered, after a bit of time, that the images of the yearbook covers and lithos that I have reworked and recreated here, to look cleaner, are being lifted from here and used by others for their on-line use. Sometimes I will slip something in to my version that is different from the original. In one example I put a color image where a black and white was used in the original. I've spotted my color version in use on other websites and know that it was lifted from this blog. There's also an image I created of 2 planes that could never occur in real life, and I've seen that image taken from this blog and used elsewhere. It would be nice if people would at least ask first.

1975 Blue Angels Yearbook

The cover of the 1975 Blue Angels Yearbook features a photo of the Blue Angel Diamond formation flying over the desert area northwest of NAF El Centro.

1975 Blue Angels Yearbook - Back Cover

The Blues A-4 Skyhawks taxiing in trail single file formation.

1976 Blue Angels Yearbook Cover

The 30th Anniversary Yearbook cover features the Blue's A-4 Skyhawks in a diamond loop.

1979 Blue Angels Yearbook Cover

1980 Blue Angels Yearbook Cover

1981 Blue Angels Yearbook

The 1981 front cover art for the 35th Anniversary year of the Blue Angels.

1981 Blue Angels Yearbook - Back Cover

The back cover features the A-4 diamond formation in a dirty flat pass as the solos make an opposing pass just behind.

1982 Blue Angels Yearbook Front Cover

The 1982 Blue Angels Yearbook double spread

The front and rear cover of the 1982 Yearbook when opened out flat featured a double spread photo of the A-4 Skyhawks in a line abreast formation.

1983 Blue Angels Yearbook Cover

The Blue Angels A-4 Skyhawks in the delta formation.

1984 Blue Angels Yearbook

The 1984 Blue Angels Yearbook featured the A-4 Skyhawks in the delta formation passing over the Golden Gate Bridge

1985 Blue Angels Yearbook

A close-up in-flight view of the Blues A-4 Skyhawk

1986 Blue Angels Yearbook Cover

The 1986 cover featured a painting by legendary aviation artist R.G. Smith showing all of the previous aircraft flown by the Blues, flying in formation with one another. This painting was created with room to allow for the next aircraft the Blues would fly, the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet, so that it could be added to the painting.

R G Smith Blue Angels Aircraft painting - updated

Here is the painting used on the 1986 Yearbook after it was updated to include the F/A-18.

The F-18 Years

In 1987 The Blue Angels switched to the McDonnel Douglas F/A-18 Hornet.

1987 BLUE ANGELS YEARBOOK

This yearbook is an elusive item. It's the first year the team used the F/A-18 Hornet in aerial demos. This yearbook has been very hard to find. It took me 34 years to finally find one to add to my collection.

The 1987 Blue Angels Support Manual

This manual was supplied to organizations hosting The Blues for an airshow and it outlines all requirements that need to be met to have a successful show.

1988 Blue Angels Yearbook

The 1988 Yearbook features the The Blues in tight formation in the middle of the change-over roll.

1989 Blue Angels Yearbook

The 1990 Blue Angels Yearbook

1991 Blue Angels Yearbook

1992 Blue Angels Yearbook

1992 Yearbook Cover Double-Spread

The 1992 yearbook featured a double-spread photo covering both the back and front cover

1993 Blue Angels Yearbook

1994 Blue Angels Yearbook

1995 Blue Angels Yearbook

1996 Blue Angels Yearbook

This cover marks the 50th Anniversary year of the Blues.

1997 Blue Angels Yearbook

1998 Blue Angels Yearbook

1999 Blue Angels Yearbook

This cover features a photo of the first and only time (so far) that a Blue Angels aircraft has trapped aboard a carrier.

The 2000 Blue Angels Yearbook

2001 Blue Angels Yearbook

2002 Blue Angels Yearbook

2003 Blue Angels Yearbook

Celebrating the Centennial of Powered Flight

2004 Blue Angels Yearbook

2005 Blue Angels Yearbook

If you look closely at this photo you will discover that the plane was actually sitting on the ground. The surrounding horizon is reflected in the canopy and just to the right of the right rudder is the airfield control tower.

2006 Blue Angels Yearbook

The Blue Angels 60th Anniversay

2007 Blue Angels Yearbook

2007 Blue Angels Support Manual

In 2007 The Blue Angels revised and expanded their Support Manual. Reading this manual makes you aware of what a daunting task it is to secure the Blues for an airshow performance with many, many requirements that have to be met. Among other things you have to provide 70 hotel rooms, up to 26 rental cars, 10 mini vans, a 15 passenger van, an 8 ft bed dual-cab pick-up, a quality athletic workout facility, military spec aircraft tugs and towbars, aircraft start carts, a fork lift that fits inside a C-130, liquid oxygen and nitrogen service carts, 10,000 feet of hangar space, up to 30 55-gallon drums of smoke oil, aircraft security, civilian police escorts to the show site, 15 gallons of bottled water - daily, 50 lbs of crushed ice each day, 3 5,000 gallon fuel trucks, $6,000 per airshow day (2007) civilian demonstration fee must be paid to the U.S. treasury prior to the teams arrival. There are many more airspace waivers and airfield requirements, airshow layout, crowd line set-up, medical facility, aircraft crash / rescue vehicles, and other items that must be ready and available. This is only a generalized and brief synopsis of what is required.

2008 Blue Angels Yearbook

2009 Blue Angels Yearbook

2010 Blue Angels Yearbook

2011 Blue Angels Yearbook

Celebrating 100 years of Naval Aviation

2012 Blue Angels Yearbook

2013 Blue Angels Yearbook

2013 is the year that our government leaders were in a stalemate with one another and could not come to an agreement and so sequestration was put into effect and due to that the public was made to suffer, in this case the military flight demonstration teams had their airshow seasons cancelled, and did not fly. We have such wise leaders in our government.

2014 Blue Angels Yearbook

2015 YEARBOOK

2016 BLUE ANGELS YEARBOOK

Celebrating 70 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE the 2016 yearbook features the Blue Angels crest embossed on a brushed steel background.

2017 BLUE ANGELS YEARBOOK FRONT COVER

This is a recreation of the 2017 front cover. The actual cover uses colors that are very close to one another in value. The printing is done with 'flat' colors and the jets have a clear coat varnish applied over them, which makes them shine and stand out in comparison to the flat background. Because the actual colors are so close to one another it becomes difficult to photograph or scan them and have them reproduce correctly, so I completely recreated the cover to enable it to show up properly on line. Another problem with 'flat' colors is that if you're hands have even the slightest amount of grease or oil on them it will transfer to the printed page and leave marks in the form of a fingerprints hand and palm prints and smears that are nearly impossible to clean off. I keep my yearbook covered in plastic to avoid this issue.

Blue Angels 2019 Yearbook cover

This is another litho cover that I completely recreated so that it would reproduce better here on line.

The back cover of the 2019 Yearbook

BLUE ANGELS 2020 YEARBOOK

BLUE ANGELS 2020 YEARBOOK BACK COVER

BLUE ANGELS 2025 YEARBOOK

The front cover of the 2025 Blue Angels Yearbook

BLUE ANGELS 2025 BACK COVER

The back cover of the 2025 yearbook features Fat Albert.

IMPOSSIBLE KNIFE-EDGE

This would be very interesting to see.

LITHOGRAPHS

Along with producing the Yearbooks and handouts, The Blue Angels also produce a yearly Lithograph featuring a photo of the team flying in the 6-plane delta formation with a noted landmark in the background. The pilots signatures appear below the photo. These lithographs are given to individuals, groups and organizations by the Blue Angels as a way to show appreciation or to mark a special occasion, such as a ride in a Blue Angels aircraft. When given out by the team these usually have the name of the recipient embellished on them as a way to personalize the litho. The lithos measure 16 x 20 inches in size, and look really cool hanging on your wall!

1976 BLUE ANGELS LITHO

The 1976 Litho features the Blues flying the A-4 Skyhawk passing in front of Mount Rushmore

1976 Blue Angels Litho - Alternate Version

Ths is another version of the 1976 Blues Litho. It measures the same 16x20 inches in size and appears to be better suited for embellishment of the recipients name.

more to come....

Blue Angels Lithos from the following years are in this collection and will be added as time permits:

'83, '84. '85, '87, '88, '89, '90, '91, '92, '93, '94, '95, '99, 2000, '01, '07, '08, '09, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013

PATCHES

These patches were obtained from various Blue Angels team members that I have been fortunate to meet over the years. Some were purchased from the maintenance team while attending events such as the Blue Angels Desert Outing at NAF El Centro.