Jeff McLean

Next Generation National Security Fellow, 2014

United States Navy

  • Press: comms@cnas.org

Lieutenant Jeff McLean has flown F/A-18 "Super Hornet" strike fighter aircraft for the Navy since 2008. He completed two combat deployments aboard the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower supporting ground forces as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. Lieutenant McLean has logged over 1,500 flight hours as aircraft commander of Navy fighter aircraft, 275 carrier landings, and over 50 combat missions, including air support for the Battles of Marjah and Kandahar. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, he currently serves as a test pilot on cutting edge F/A-18 projects and aircraft carrier landing and catapult system programs. Additionally, he serves as the Navy's Project Officer for the X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System, the first UAV to make an arrested landing on an aircraft carrier.

A native of Mequon, Wisconsin, Lieutenant McLean graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 2004 and Oxford University in 2006, where he studied as a Truman Scholar and Fulbright Scholar.

His wife, Christine, serves in the U.S. Air Force as a KC-135 aerial refueling tanker pilot, and they live in Alexandria, VA with their newborn daughter, Madeleine.