SKYFEVER - Brendan O'Briens Life

Brendan's Life

Brendan’s ancestry in Ireland goes back to the
seventeenth century with Huguenot immigration
from France.
Although his formative years were spent in London
in a quiet family environment, everything changed
dramatically when he was orphaned in his early
teens and began a life of travel and adventure.

As a child he had been fascinated by birds and perhaps flying was in his blood
from birth.
Not surprising then that the world of aviation beckoned initially with ballooning and
gliding before being seduced by powered flight.
Now, more than thirty five years later Brendan has over thirteen thousand hours on
nearly three hundred types of aircraft and holds a licence to fly every kind of flying
machine.
He holds in excess of two hundred aviation world records ratified by the FAI in Paris.
He is a CAA display authorisation holder/examiner, test pilot and medallist of the Royal
Aero Club and has flown on every continent in the world including Antarctica.

Brendan also trained as a civil and military parachutist and has taken part in several
international para-military expeditions including the famous Trans Americas crossing
of the infamous Darien Gap.
He has been a keen mountaineer and is an all round naturalist with a particular
interest in the fauna and flora of the Polar Region.
From the awe inspiring moment of his first loop in a glider Brendan developed a
fascination for aerobatics which was to become one of the strongest motivational
forces in his future flying career.

Though never attracted by airline flying Brendan flew as a
single crew commercial pilot for several years in the
early days of the UK oil boom in Scotland with such
wonderful machines as multi-engine De Havilland Heron
and flew that same type on oil support in the Persian Gulf.
It was with another DH aircraft, the Twin Otter, that he
had the privilege of experiencing the glories of
Antarctica.
He has ferried aircraft, many of them single-engine over
all the great oceans of the world.
However it was in airshow flying, and in particular
“flying circus,” that Brendan was to find his forte and
make his mark.
He formed and led the renowned Fournier RF4 Duo aerial
ballet flown to the music of the Pink Floyd (whose
members he had taught to fly), with his colleague
John Taylor.
He brought the amazing “Truck top Landing” to UK and
led the first team of wingwalkers in Europe and in the
process flew the first inverted wingwalk on that
continent with Helen Tempest.

Brendan has flown for more than a dozen successful sponsorships and is now working up yet
another new and innovative act for the coming airshow season.
He is also a highly experienced flying instructor/examiner on fixed wing and rotary aircraft,
Microlights and gliders and delights in enthusing others to become part of the wonderful world
of aviation.

Hunter Video

Brendan commentating