If something scares you, you should maybe try it.
Brendan O’Donnell can’t remember a time he didn’t want to fly. As he pursued his dreams, he pushed through set-backs and challenges, growing from an excited kid at an airshow to a student and instructor at Lane Aviation Academy to a pilot at Alaska Airlines. Wanting to share his love of aviation and the incredible stories he heard from other pilots, Brendan challenged himself to do something that scared him much more than flying at 40,000 feet — starting a podcast.
With a passion for storytelling and a hobby of video and audio editing, he dove in. Over the past year, Brendan’s grown The Pilot Life, his podcast and YouTube channel to a dedicated following of over 11,000 fellow aviation enthusiasts. Brendan sat down with us to share some of his favorite stories and explain how he reached his goals through persistence and passion.
Tell me a bit about yourself. Where are you from? What made you want to become a pilot?
I was born and raised in Eugene, the last of eight kids. I was always drawing pictures of airplanes, and all my friends knew that I knew all the stats of every single plane out there.
In 1992, when I was 15, I went to the Eugene Air Show and saw the Blue Angels and military planes. I remember it vividly. Top Gun had come out not too long before. So, I went and talked to the Navy recruiters in the eighth grade, but because I wore glasses, I wasn’t eligible to fly in the military. I was bummed, 'cause I really wanted to fly fighter jets, but it just wasn't meant to be.
So I decided, “Okay, if I can't go the military route, I’ll go the civilian route.”
And that’s what brought you to Lane's Aviation Academy?
I don't know if you remember the Oregon Electric Station? My sister worked there with a woman who was a flight student out at Lane. She gave me a tour of the flight school and I was hooked. I thought, “Oh, this is the coolest thing ever. I'm definitely gonna do it.”
And so I started flight school in September of 1998. This was before YouTube, so you couldn’t look up videos of pilots in action. You just showed up and didn't really know what to expect other than you're gonna be flying a plane that first lesson.
It’s fun to think back on this time. In The Office, Andy Bernard says something like, “I wish someone would have told me I was in the good old days when I was in the good old days.” And it really does feel like that. It was a very charmed time. I still keep in touch with people from Lane. In fact, I now work with four of my fellow classmates at Alaska [Airlines].
How did you end up at Alaska Airlines?
It took me two years of flight school to get all my ratings to be able to teach. Typically, your first job after flight school is teaching. So, I got hired at Lane as a flight instructor in 2000. At the time, Lane didn’t have any multi-engine planes, so I eventually applied to work at a larger flight school down in Arizona, where I could get that experience. I packed up my U-Haul with all my things and dreams and I headed south.
The day I left Eugene was September 10, 2001. I was on the road when September 11 happened. It was a scary, confusing time in the country, obviously. No one knew what was happening, particularly in aviation. I mean, they grounded every airplane. I didn't know if I even had a job still.
Fortunately, I still had my job and was able to get my multi-engine time. When airlines started to hire again in 2003, I found a position with Horizon Airlines. I was based out in Denver flying CRJs [Canadair Regional Jets] and that was awesome. After thirteen years, I got hired with Alaska and have been there ever since.
I just feel really fortunate. I'll have moments where I'm sitting in the front of the airplane and I'll look out that left window and think “Oh my God, I'm in the front of a 737. I can't believe I get to do this.”
How did you get into podcasting and YouTube?
When my wife and I started having kids, we wanted to make really cool family videos. We spent all our money on a computer and camcorder. After a while, we wondered if we could make money off this hobby. On my layovers, I learned how to video edit, and we got into filming weddings — believe it or not — for eight years. We also did our own YouTube videos during COVID, when I took some time off and we traveled in an RV with our kids for six months. I learned how to edit and tell stories quickly and effectively.
I was also an instructor at Alaska, and saw an opening to combine my video editing and flight instruction skills. I presented a video I’d put together to our head of training, and she loved it. I didn't know how that decade of filming and editing was ever gonna combine with flying, but it did. Like they say, “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.”
Never in a million years did I think I would ever want to make a podcast. But I'm also a big proponent of if something scares you, you should maybe try it. I think that's where the real growth comes. So, as I did the podcast for the company, I would sit down with these pilots and think, “These stories are incredible. Let's get them in the world.”
I bought all of the podcasting gear and sat down with one of my buddies I’d known for 25 years and works for United. I didn't know how it was going to go or what questions I was going to ask or anything, but I knew that I could at least make it look good and sound good. That first episode did well, and when I asked other people to interview, they kept saying yes.
With my podcast, I wanted to share the story of aviation, but not just aviation. I think it’s easy to look at someone successful and think they’re born with incredible confidence, but when you talk to them you realize they had the same doubts you do. I wanted to demystify that, really share the human experience of overcoming your fears.
What's one memory, class, or teacher that stuck with you from your time at Lane?
Every spring, we’d have a big picnic out at the Cottage Grove airport for students, instructors, and their families. We’d study and barbecue, all sitting on the grass, with a Wiffle ball bat, blankets, and books. It was a really tight-knit group of students and teachers.
This was my favorite part of Lane: the camaraderie. Learning how to fly is a very technical skill. There are so many things you have to learn — not only how to fly the airplane, but also how to talk on the radio, how to be an effective leader, what to do if you get lost, how to navigate, etc. You're gonna reach points in your training where you'll think, "I don't know if I can keep going." In those moments, you need people to fall back on.
That’s where you learn those soft skills like communication. And that’s so important, because it's not just about the flying skills. How do you get along with someone you sit three feet across from for six hours a day, four days a week? When you’re flying a 737, responsible for the lives of 180 people, you need both the technical skills and the soft skills.
Anything I missed that you'd like to talk about?
I’m a Titan at heart. The Willamette Valley is just an amazing place to learn, for many reasons. You can practice flying in the clouds with low visibility. You've got mountain training right there. You can go into really busy airspaces like Portland and Seattle. It's such a wide assortment of training, so when you graduate, you have a much more diverse range of experience than someone who trains in a sunny environment. When you have to factor in ice in the cloud layer to fly to Bend, you learn those critical decision-making skills.
I also wanted to mention my recent interview with Corey Peters on my podcast. He’s a graduate of Lane, too. We both started in '98 and he has an incredible story. He flew for City Jet, flying out of London for 7-10 years. Then he got hired flying for the forest service, fighting fires. He's got this incredible footage of flying tankers over fires. There are lots of different paths after Lane, not just mine.
What's one piece of advice you'd give a future pilot?
Flying is a lot of fun. It’s an honor and a privilege to walk through the airplane door and turn left into the flight deck. I get to live my dream. But I kind of wish I could go back and fly that Cessna again and go out with my instructor for stalls and steep turns.
For anyone pursuing a dream, it's easy to get into that trap of being laser focused on the end goal. You can't wait to get there, so much so that you might miss out on all the wonderful little things you experience along the way. Enjoy every step. That's what I would tell a flight student.