Gary Odom leading a tour at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Fla.
The year is 1985 and it’s an early morning in Tallahassee, Fla. A student and his teacher quietly float over the tops of trees in one of the numerous wildlife management areas that surround the city. The student, on a visit from Alaska, has no idea where they are, but the pilot does.
He asks his student if he knows how to swim.
The student simply answers with a yes.
They clear the trees and find themselves over a lake. In that lake and directly in their flight path is a small boat with a grandfather and a grandson. Both are fishing and both are facing the other way, completely unaware of what is approaching them.
The aircraft begins to descend.
Hearing a loud slap behind them, the pair in the boat casually turn around as if expecting to see some sort of animal, but that’s not what it is.
Instead, what they see is a hot air balloon, floating on the water about 40 feet behind them.
And in that hot air balloon is Gary Odom, experiencing his first splash and dash.
“That was my very first flight.”
It may have been Odom’s first flight in a hot air balloon, but it was far from his first time flying. At that point in his life, Odom was already an experienced helicopter pilot for both the coast guard and the army, and within the next week, he would also become certified in hot air balloons, gliders and seaplanes.
“When I was stationed in Alaska with the coast guard,” says Odom, “ every year I had to do a week of recurrent training. Airline pilots have to do it, military pilots have to do it.”
Odom’s training would be taking place in Mobile, Ala.
“I thought I would like to get certified in gliders, and certified in flying seaplanes, and in hot air balloons,” he continues. “We didn’t have the internet to interact with people, so I found them through the mail and then set up dates.”
Two days here.
Two days here.
Three days here.
“Once I come and do my one week of training in Mobile, once that’s over, I could go,” says Odom. “The balloon took me to Tallahassee on the first day, and then I did gliders, and then I did seaplanes, and then I went to North Carolina to fly balloons to finish up.”
“I had never been on a commercial airliner in my life until my junior year”
Aviation has been a big part of Odom’s life, but it wasn’t until he was a student at the University of Southern Mississippi that he flew for the first time.
“I had never been on a commercial airliner in my life until my junior year,” says Odom. “I flew on an airliner at that time and I said, oh, that would be pretty neat to go fly.”
It was during the Vietnam War era while Odom was enrolled in USM. Back then, the only ROTC program the school offered was with the army and every male was required to spend their first two years in college as part of the program. After that, it was optional.
“If you’re junior and senior, then they pay you,” says Odom. “And there were certain scholarships you could apply for and get. One of them was flight training, so hey, why not take advantage?”
Odom took full advantage of the Army scholarship, working towards becoming a private pilot. As part of his training, he would fly Piper aircraft out of what was then known as Hattiesburg Municipal Airport, later renamed to Hattiesburg Bobby L. Chain Municipal Airport.
The training culminated during his senior year with his solo cross country flight. To meet the requirements, the pilot must travel over 50 nautical miles in a straight line from his or her place of origin.
“You can’t just fly over there and fly back,” says Odom. “You have to do a landing.”
To prove a landing, the pilot must have someone at the destination sign their logbook before flying back.
On the day of his flight, Odom and another Army ROTC student met their flight instructor at the airport. There, they were told they were flying 55 miles to McComb, Miss. but they were not allowed to go at the same time because the instructor was afraid the energetic 21 year olds would do some formation flying, which wasn’t allowed due to accidents. Odom would leave second and couldn’t crank up until the other student had left the ground.
“It takes a little while to crank up and do all your checklists and then taxi out and then take off,” says Odom. “I get up, I get to McComb, I land at McComb.”
Upon landing, Odom does not see the other student, or any other aircraft.
“Matter of fact, I can’t find anybody. It’s a Saturday morning, I can’t find anybody to sign my logbook.”
Luckily for Odom, there is someone mowing grass along the taxiway and runway.
How can I help you?
I have to prove I was here, so I need you to sign my logbook that says I was here in McComb.
I can’t read or write.
Odom asks for his name and writes it in his logbook.
You just put you an X right here if that’s your name.
“And he did,” says Odom. “And that’s how I proved it.”
By the way, my friend had the same aircraft. Did he just leave?
I’ve been mowing for hours. Nobody has taken off or landed here.
You sure?
I’m telling you nobody could have done it without me because I’m right here.
“I went back to my aircraft,” says Odom. “I cranked it up and went back home.”
After landing back in Hattiesburg, Odom’s instructor asks about the other student, but the only thing he can say is he didn’t show up in McComb.
45 minutes had passed between Odom cranking up and landing in McComb. By the time he was back in Hattiesburg, it had been over two hours.
“I felt bad, so I stayed with him,” says Odom.
Another two and a half hours go by.
No sign of the other student.
A phone rings, and the instructor answers it.
You’re where? Really. Did you run out of fuel?
The other student had gotten lost and couldn’t find McComb and ended up just south of Shreveport, La. He saw an airport and decided to land, refueled and called his instructor to let him know he was about to fly back.
No you’re not. Don’t touch that aircraft. I’ll be over there. Might take me a little while, but I’ll be there.
Odom watched as his instructor, joined by another, took off for Shreveport, knowing he had successfully completed his first solo cross country flight.
Odom received his commission on the same day he graduated. He went to Infantry Officer Basic Course (IOBC) for around three months and then went directly to flight school.
That lasted about a year, and in Odom’s words, was a lot of fun.
He was trained in different types of helicopters, eventually training in the Bell UH-1 Iroquois, or Huey as it was nicknamed, the main aircraft of the Vietnam War. But Odom would never see Vietnam.
“A third of my flight class went to Vietnam and a third went to Korea,” says Odom. “And a third stayed state-side. The Vietnam War was winding down, and they knew it was winding down. I got chosen to go to Korea.”
During Odom’s 13 month tour in Korea, he roomed with another pilot he had gone to flight school with.
“After his time in the military,” explains Odom, “he wanted to become an FBI agent like his dad.”
To his credit, that’s what he did. He even retired out of it.
“But this was when we were young,” continues Odom. “We were roommates and he kept talking about, ‘I want to go to Airborne’, but he was a little chunky thing. In airborne, you have to be physically fit. You have to do so many pull-ups the right way, and you have to do so many other things physically, and he struggled. I was really physically fit, so I would make fun of him. Every night, he would work hard and I would just get up there and do one arm pull-ups and just make fun of him.”
So on a dare, Odom’s roommate said if he was a real man, then he would also go to airborne school.
Odom accepted.
“I’m so smart,” says Odom. “I waited until I knew they couldn’t get me in there. I knew I could not get it, I already had orders from my next unit.”
“You don’t usually have a qualified pilot go through ranger school”
Odom applied for airborne, but he was not expecting what he heard next.
“They came back and said, ‘We have an opening for you. It just opened up. And so we got you in airborne,’”
After Odom completed airborne school, he decided it was too easy, so he applied for ranger school.
On the first day, he and roughly 300 others were all seated in a big auditorium. Ranks no longer existed. It was either officer or enlisted, which is what Odom was.
The main officer in charge points to one side of the auditorium.
All you guys that are airborne and want jump pay, you come right over here. All of you other non airborne guys go over here.
He points to the other side.
“So everyone goes their separate ways,” recalls Odom, “but there’s this one idiot still in the auditorium in the center.”
Sir, are you awake? (Only he didn’t say sir.)
Yes sir.
Maybe you didn’t hear me, but if you want jump pay, you go here. And if you’re not, you go over here.
“I didn’t move,” laughs Odom. “So he got really pissed. He came off the stage. Came right down in front of me.”
We’re having a moment here where I don’t think you understand.
I understand perfectly.
I’m going to say it one more time. If you are airborne, and you want to get jump pay, you go this way. If you’re not airborne, you go over here.
“So I still didn’t move.”
What’s the problem?
I am airborne, but I don’t want jump pay.
At that time, jump pay was $60 for enlisted men and $120 if they were an officer.
What’s the problem?
Flight pay. I get $400 a month. If I go and do the jump pay over here, then I lose my flight pay. And I’m surely not in that line.
I’ll tell you what (expletive), get over here and give me 25, left arm first.
“I knew they’d get me,” says Odom with a smile. “ You don’t usually have a qualified pilot go through ranger school. You just don’t do it.”
Upon completion of ranger school, Odom was going to be placed with a ranger unit. They thought he had three years left, but Odom knew he only had a year and a half left.
“They were going to put me in a ranger unit and I said, you know, what about if I do a year and a half in an aviation unit and fly since I just got out of flight school and had a tour over seas, and then do a year and a half in rangers?”
His superiors agreed.
After a year and a half of being stationed and flying at Fort Lewis, WA, he was out, having never been in a ranger unit.
After the military, Odom was hoping to become an airline pilot. In order to build up the required amount of hours, he became a flight instructor based out of Bruce Campbell Field in Madison, Miss. He also joined the Mississippi Army National Guard based out of Hawkins Field in Jackson to help supplement his income.
“I said, you accept me and I’ll be there, I promise”
“Flight instructing didn’t pay very much.”
In the meantime, Odom interviewed with a few airlines, but became frustrated when they didn’t go anywhere. He then found himself at Fort Rucker in Dale County, Ala. where he instructed helicopter pilots for a year. While there, he applied to join the Coast Guard and was approved, but changed his mine shortly before he was to start.
“A full time National Guard aviation slot became available in Jackson,” says Odom. “So I took it.”
He didn’t like it at all. Long story short, his job was to fly a desk.
“That whole year I was miserable in that job.”
He reapplied for the coast guard.
He gets a call.
You really look good on paper. You turned us down last year. We’re not going through this again.
“I said, you accept me and I’ll be there, I promise” recounts Odom with a laugh.
Odom went into the coast guard with a class of about 15 others who were coming from different branches of the military. At one point, he was asked to fill out a wish list of where he would like to be stationed and he wrote down Corpus Christi, Texas and Miami.
One day while in class, another student had a question.
I don’t understand why I got San Fransisco when it wasn’t even on my wish list.
We rank all the students by this criteria.
Well I still don’t understand why I got San Fransisco. I wanted to go to Miami. How did Gary get it?
Okay, I’ll be blunt with you. The number one student in here is Gary Odom. He got Miami because it was his second choice. He was number one and you were not.
Odom had chosen Corpus Christi as a way to remain in the South and Miami because it is the busiest air-sea rescue unit in the world.
“And that was great.”
Odom would end up being stationed in Miami for five years and completing many air-sea rescues, but there is one that always comes to mind first.
“It had six people on board and two of them weighed over 300 pounds,” recounts Odom. “And they were the last two to come up. We had a rescue basket on a hoist. We were taking two people up at a time.”
The boat was the Miss Bonnie and she was taking on water.
After safely recovering the first four passengers, it was time to rescue the final two.
“We realized the boat is sinking with them on it,” continues Odom. “Our hoist is rated at 600 pounds, but to save a life, we are going to do whatever we can.”
The last two climbed into the basket just as the last of the boat was going underwater. It got caught on the gunwale and was pulled under.
“Then they popped up and we brought them up into the aircraft.”
“We’re doing the test flight and the engine quits”
Then there was the time Odom himself needed the rescuing.
"There was a new aircraft commander and he was going to go out on a ship and take a crew.”
The plan was to board a ship with his helicopter and crew and cruise around the Caribbean in search of illegal immigrants and drugs, and this was that commander’s first time.
“He came to me and said Gary, I’m going out here as the aircraft commander. I’ve never done a test flight.”
All test flights require a pilot in command, and it’s always single piloted because it’s a test flight.
“You’re testing something they have replaced on the aircraft,” says Odom. “I was the engineering officer which means in my unit, I usually did all the test flights. But sometimes I would have to show people how to do them if they were going to be aircraft commander.”
In helicopters, the pilot sits on the right side, so Odom takes the left seat. In his hand is the test flight card, a collection of about seven pages listing out everything that needs to be tested on that particular flight and the order it needs to be done in. They proceeded to do the testing over the everglades where they could fly and not be bothered by people.
“We’re doing the test flight and the engine quits”
The pilot freezes.
Another crew member would later tell Odom he remembered him hitting the pilot on his shoulder with his helmet, trying to get him to let go of the controls.
The pilot would go on to tell the accident investigation he didn’t know an engine failure had occurred until Odom took the controls.
“The bells and whistles were all going off,” says Odom. “That’s when I dropped the card and immediately grabbed the controls.”
A helicopter doesn’t glide. It falls like a rock. Because of this, Odom worked to get the aircraft back under control speed-wise by using a piloting technique called auto rotation where the pilot uses the speed of the descent to rotate the helicopter blades and help create lift.
They landed safely in the Everglades, but the tail was cut off by the rotor in the process.
A sky crane helicopter was brought in from Meridian, Miss. to lift the wrecked helicopter out of the swamps and it was eventually put back together and able to fly.
After five years in Miami, Odom was sent to Kodiak, Alaska.
“The coldest I’ve ever flown in is minus 40,” recalls Odom.
Minus 40 degrees is the same in both Celsius and Fahrenheit.
“I remember playing cards and putting a hot coke outside, playing a round, going back out and it’s frozen pretty quickly.”
From there, he would go to Rincon, Puerto Rico, and then to Port Angelas, Wash., and finally to Mobile. In the middle of all that, in 1992, Odom would find himself on a six month trip to Antarctica.
“Left in October and came back in April,” says Odom. “Although that was six months, I was only in Antarctica a total of about six weeks. But I was on a slow boat.”
That slow boat was the USCGC Polar Star, a coast guard cutter used to cut a path through ice so a logistics ship could take supplies to the research stations.
“We’re talking lots of feet of ice,” explains Odom.
On board, Odom was in charge of two aircraft, four pilots and eight or nine crew members, and they would fly on and off the cutter when needed.
“Their summer down there is our winter, so I was down there in January and February flying.”
In addition to flying, Odom also spent some time in Antarctica running.
“While I was down there, I did a 5K race. They hold it annually.”
Odom would retire from the coast guard in 1995 and eventually move to Ruston, La. in 2003 to become a faculty member in the aviation department at Louisiana Tech University. In less than a year, he would become the chief flight instructor. A year after that, he was the department head.
In 2015, after living in Ruston for 12 years, he would retire and move to his current home in Valparaiso, Fla. where he teaches flight instruction at the Eglin Aero Club at Eglin Air Force Base and volunteers as a tour guide at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola.
And of course, he always makes time to travel to multiple balloon festivals around the South each year.
It seems no matter where Odom ends up, aviation is always a part of his life.