The Navy Said Only One Company Could Legally Make the Blue Angels' Flight Suits. Eight Months Later, It Picked a Different One — and Won't Say Why.

For 43 years, a small Pensacola shop called the Sewing Box made the Blue Angels' ceremonial flight suits -- every contract awarded sole-source, without competition, because the Navy's own paperwork said no one else could legally do it. Per Military.com's reporting on the sole-source justification the Navy signed in September 2025, it said the shop held exclusive licensing rights, possessed the established patterns, and was the only manufacturer approved under the naval aviation safety manual that governs the suits. Eight months later, the Navy ran an open competition anyway and handed a five-year, up-to-$1.69 million contract to a different company, Aquila International of Dulles, Virginia -- without ever publicly explaining what changed. The Navy didn't respond to reporters' direct questions about it. Neither has Aquila. The shop's owner, Candy Whitehurst, also says this is the first year in the relationship nobody from the Navy called to tell her the contract was up for renewal; a Navy spokesperson says Whitehurst told the Blue Angels in January she planned to retire, which Whitehurst denies. Both the exclusivity claim and the switch that ignored it are matters of public record -- and the specific legal justification the Navy is required to disclose still hasn't been fully explained.