Amy Egeli
One of five women to receive an NFO slot in her Naval Academy class. P-3s, chosen on the spot.
FAM flight in T-34s in Pensacola
Director of Systems Engineering and P-8A Systems Integrator
ASEC
ORIGIN
Top Gun and a Family Legacy
Amy will admit Top Gun had something to do with it. It came out her senior year of high school. But it was summer cruises as a midshipman that made the case for her: any day in the air beats what she calls “haze gray and underway.”
Naval aviation runs in the family. Her dad was a Naval Aviator and airline pilot. Her grandfather was an aircraft maintainer in the Pacific during WWII, then civil service in Pensacola, the Cradle of Naval Aviation, where Amy grew up.
She wanted to be a pilot, but her vision wasn’t 20/20, so NFO was the next best option. She was one of five women to receive an NFO slot on Naval Academy service selection night. While she was in flight school, combat exclusion laws were lifted, immediately opening many more doors. She picked P-3s on the spot.
sailing Navy 44s at the Naval Academy
THE DRAW
A Needle in a Haystack
“You can always get above the clouds to see the sun.”
One mission still stands out: a dark night anti-drug intercept over the Caribbean. The Air Force aircraft meant to track the target couldn’t take off, so Amy’s crew was on their own, flying nearly blind with a radar that had a tiny field of view. They set up behind the target’s presumed track, and by a stroke of luck, he appeared on their display a few miles ahead. They followed him all the way to his landing site in Central America.
The hardest part of the job isn’t flying, it’s people. Ten different personalities on a P-3, trained to perform at a high level under uncomfortable conditions for eight to ten hours at a stretch. Leading that crew well is the real challenge, and also what makes it worth it.
AT ASEC
The Three-Legged Stool
Amy’s NFO experience directly shaped ASEC’s early approach to the P-8A program. Her team knew Boeing’s mission system software needed an operator’s perspective, so they built a three-way partnership between engineering, training, and test, with ASEC people in every leg of it. The lessons from that setup still guide P-8A work today.
CLOSING
A Gift Worth Taking Seriously
Amy wants ASEC’s customers to know the company genuinely prioritizes the operator, because as naval aviators, that’s not a talking point, it’s a passion.
“The Naval Aviation community is a wonderful gift and opportunity to build lifelong skills and relationships. Take advantage of those opportunities now to open future doors to success.”
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