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Cmdr. Jon Fay with the U.S. Navy Blue Angels answers questions from CCHS students.
Sgt. Dylan Leppard, far left, and Cmdr. Jon Fay, far right, meet Cumberland County High School’s Aviation 2 class.
Cmdr. Jon Fay with the U.S. Navy Blue Angels answers questions from CCHS students.
Sgt. Dylan Leppard, far left, and Cmdr. Jon Fay, far right, meet Cumberland County High School’s Aviation 2 class.
On the morning of Sept. 9, members of the United States Navy Blue Angels visited Cumberland County High School to talk about their values, passions and day-to-day work with the U.S. Navy.
The Blue Angels are a flight demonstration squadron of the Navy, the team consisting of 154 world-class, active duty sailors and Marines. Operating since 1946, it is the second-oldest formal aerobatic team in the world, second only to the French Patrouille de France (1931). The flight demonstrations the squadron hosts are to showcase the precision and power of naval aviation.
CCHS is no stranger to to the skies, being more than a year into the school’s aviation program to help students train for a private pilot’s license and having a jet as its mascot. The school also has two retired jets on campus, one being an old Blue Angels jet that is being restored.
At the event, Commander Jon Fay and Sgt. Dylan Lippard spoke to the students about their military experience.
Fay, who is from Fort Worth, TX, graduated from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD, before he was commissioned as an ensign in the U.S. Navy. In 2002, Fay was designated a Naval Flight Officer, and has worked in several areas of the Navy ever since.
In 2017, Fay was selected to serve in the office of a member of the U.S. House of Represantives in Washington D.C., and two years later reported to the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Fay joined the Blue Angels in September 2021, and has accumulated more than 2,900 flight hours and 168 carrier arrested landings since.
Lippard, who originally hails from Statesville, NC, joined the Marine Corps straight after graduating high school in 2013. Lippard recounted to CCHS students that the day he graduated high school, he was in a truck accident that broke his neck, which he described as a major setback.
In February 2021, Lippard earned his Blue Angels Crest after four months of intense training. Lippard is in the Airframes work center. His job is to maintain flight controls, hydraulic systems, landing, arresting and catapult gear. He also performs composite/sheet metal structural repairs on the F/A-18 Hornet jet.
Afterward, students were permitted to ask them questions, such as “What’s the top speed of a Blue Angel jet?” (The F/A-18 can surpass nearly twice the speed of sound, but at shows only fly up to around around 700 miles per hour) and “What’s the longest you’ve ever flown upside down?” (about 25 seconds).
Three members of the Tennessee Army National Guard also attended the speech: Chief Warrant Officer 2 Daniel Backus, Sgt. Daniel Mills and Chief Warrant Officer 4 Peter Neveu.
Neveu was a graduate from CCHS in 1987, and served as a combat engineer in California before receiving his honorable discharge in 1992. Five years later, Neveu returned to Tennessee and joined the Army National Guard and was deployed to Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. Neveu still flies with the National Guard, and has earned three Air Medals, the Combat Action Badge and the Soldiers Medal.
Originally, Medal of Honor recipients Lt. Col. Harold Fritz and Lt. Col. Will Swenson were also meant to speak at CCHS two days prior to the Blue Angels, but were unable to be flown in to the school that day due to inclement weather. The Blue Angels’ visit to CCHS preceded their visit to Knoxville for the Smoky Mountain Air Show that took place Sept. 10 and 11.
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