Deskbound helo pilot provides critical skills during drawdown

By Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod
1st BCT, 82nd Abn. Div. PAO

Photo by Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod/1st BCT, 82nd Abn. Div. PAO Captain Catherine Omodt, brigade aviation planner and officer in charge of Team Pax for 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, checks incoming flight schedules in her office at Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, June 27, while coordinating the redeployment of her brigade to Fort Bragg. Omodt is a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter pilot on her third deployment with the Army.

AL ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq — Two-wheel landings on snowy Afghan ridgetops are more exciting, but managing the exodus of a 4,000-strong brigade during the drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq provides its own challenges for one deskbound helicopter pilot with 82nd Airborne Division.

Captain Catherine Omodt’s job is to orchestrate the movements of incoming and outgoing personnel and equipment of two advise-and-assist brigades as they swap places in Iraq’s expansive Al Anbar province for the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the beginning of Operation New Dawn.

As the officer in charge of Team Pax, Omodt provides command and control for the deployment of 4th Advise and Assist Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, and the redeployment of her own unit to the United States; 1st Brigade Combat Team (Advise and Assist Brigade), 82nd Abn. Div.

The former 101st Airborne Division UH-60 Blackhawk pilot and current 1st BCT aviation planner said that knowing the capacity of helicopters, how many people they can fit and how much cargo they can take as well as the ability to advise Soldiers unfamiliar with the planning of the movements of large numbers of people, are the most important skills she brings to her current role.

“In different times of the year, you can take more or less weight based on aircraft capabilities of heat, cold and other environmental and mechanical conditions,” said Omodt.

“When 18 people show up with five bags each — you can fit 22 pax on a (flight of) Black Hawk, I have to tell them they’re not going to get on with that equipment. Instead of having to call aviation, we have someone in the brigade that has that knowledge to be able to give realistic expectations.”

As a freshman at Vanderbilt University in 1999, Omodt’s future expectations included neither helicopters nor the Army.

However, Vanderbilt’s $35,000-a-year tuition and fees spurred Omodt to investigate the Reserve Officers Training Corps. By her sophomore year, the Army was paying for most of her education.
Five years later, she was flying Black Hawks in Iraq.

“Flying seemed like a fun way to spend my time in the Army,” Omodt said. Omodt had listed
medical service as a secondary branch choice, but received her first — aviation.

“Some officers in medical service are also sent to flight school,” she explained.

Omodt’s first deployment was in September 2005 with 101st to Foward Operating Base Speicher, a rotary-wing hub north of Baghdad, where she flew Blackhawks in general aviation support.

Two years later, she was at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, again in the cockpit.

“Flying in Afghanistan was awesome,” she said. “I was there mostly in wintertime and it was ranges upon ranges of mountains covered in snow. We could fly through passes and do two-wheel landings on top of ridgelines. It was both fun and beautiful.”

With more than 770 hours of flight time, Omodt’s third deployment landed her at a desk in Ramadi, Iraq, as 1st BCT’s aviation planner. The job was far less glamorous, but equally important, Omodt said.

As the leader of a team of 11, she oversaw control of Anbar airspace at the lower altitudes where helicopters fly.

She coordinated everything from standard movement of passengers around the airspace to being the link between infantry companies and aviation during air assaults.

“For us, the biggest challenge was that the systems were constantly changing,” she said.

In late June, Omodt and Team Pax began operations in Al Asad, where they will remain until 1st BCT is fully removed from Anbar. The hours are long and the work is at times tedious, said Omodt, but good aviation logistical support saves time, expense and stress on Soldiers, and ultimately, it’s what gets Soldiers back with their Families.

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