Team members are visiting each of the 32 scheduled air show sites where the Navy F/A-18s will perform this coming season, said Blue Angels events coordinator Lt. Commander Lilly Montana.
“We’ll meet with air show organizers, air field representatives, community leaders and recruiters and get everybody on the same sheet of music for the Dayton Air Show this June,” Montana said, speaking with members of the media inside a Wright Brothers Aero hangar.
The Blue Angels will headline Dayton’s show both days, June 13 and 14 at Dayton International Airport. The team’s first show next year will be March 14 at the El Centro, Calif. Festival of Flight.
For the second year in a row, the Dayton show drew about 75,000 people to last year’s event, crowds who were undeterred by two days of hot weather.
The theme for the 2026 show will recognizing America’s 250th birthday.
“Next season is a very special season for us,” said Montana, who as an O-4 has a rank equivalent to an Air Force major. “It’s not only America’s 250th, it’s the Blue Angels’ 80th anniversary. We were founded in 1946.”
She added: “It’s very special to be able to come to Ohio and bring a little bit of the Navy and Marine Corps here where they may not otherwise be represented.”
The Blue Angels alternate performances over Dayton with the Air Force Thunderbirds, who flew here last year and can be expected to fly in the 2027 Dayton Air Show.
Rigorous team rehearsals have already started around Pensacola, Fla., home base for the Blue Angels.
And for these pilots, practice is everything, said demonstration pilot Lt. Ronny Hafeza.
“It’s vitally important,” the O-3 said. “When we go about our winter training schedule, the pilots who fly in the delta (formation) fly one or two times a day, which is what they’re doing right now. On Jan. 6th through our first air show ... they fly about two to three times a day. That’s 120 sorties between early January through mid-March.”
In October, CenterPoint Energy announced the $2.6 billion sale of its Ohio natural gas distribution business, Vectren Energy Delivery of Ohio, to National Fuel Gas Co., a New York company. CenterPoint expects the sale to close in late 2026.
A member of the show’s media team said CenterPoint remains the show’s title sponsor.
Ticket information for the 2026 show can be found at daytonairshow.com.
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