The highly decorated Feltre pilot presents on Friday at Malga Campet the book that traces anecdotes, emotions and encounters
FELT. Two hundred and fifty pages, 70 anecdotes, 160 photos and more than 10 thousand hours in the air: “Then you can no longer count them, in 34 years of flight.” Maurizio Bottegal’s thoughts and words took off as he does with paragliding “and it was a pleasure to put them on paper”, says the highly decorated paragliding pilot, who trod the international competitive environment from 1989 to 2009 (including a medal team silver medal at the World Championships in Mexico 2009 and a bronze medal in Austria twenty years earlier) and continues to take her feet off the ground because she can’t do without it.
Born in 1962, he is a free flight examining instructor, founder and director of the “Monte Avena” flight school. Four years ago he was race director of the paragliding world championship held in the skies of Feltre. There is everything in the book “Lords of the wind. The (my) history of paragliding between anecdotes and curiosities ”, which he will present tomorrow (weather permitting) at 6 pm at Malga Campet, on Mount Avena.
Have you felt the need to tell your story in a book?
«It is my paragliding story, but I put“ mine ”in parentheses in the title precisely because it is also the paragliding story of many other pilots I met along the way and they have embellished this book with particular thoughts and stories. Many things have happened around the world, I met many people and I asked for a contribution to eighteen riders ».
How is the story set up?
«The book is thought of emotions, a story through anecdotes. The thing I liked most is that a few pages read by people who don’t fly made them want to take the paragliding course ».
What is flight?
«It is a very strong passion. I started in 1987 and have never been able to stop. At the beginning we were little more than paratroopers without planes and the competitions were precision landing, then there were incredible evolutions ».
What draws you to the top?
«I have always been very sporty and equally competitive. When you compete, the fun is very often linked to the result, while when you stop, you realize that you have flown for twenty years on the Feltre Peaks and you have never seen them. With the paragliding school we bring people every day to fly in tandem and the best thing is that they are delighted by the fact that it is a sweet emotion. At the beginning they don’t believe it, because they think it’s an adrenaline thing ».
How do you see the risk aspect?
“If you play sports, you risk something anyway. We have similar risk rates to cycling, motorcycles and many other things. I’ve been flying for 34 years and the last time I risked my life was on my bike on Mount Tomatico. In practice with paragliding it is a take-off, not a jump into the void, it is much softer than what one thinks. A certain fear it is right that there is, not fear because otherwise it is better to let it go, but the right fear makes you be on the alert ».
Is flying always a new emotion or do you get used to it after a while?
«The emotions I felt in the early years when it was all a discovery can no longer exist. But the emotions are always there, as in long flights, or in particular passages in which you can maybe take pictures in incredible environments, which you could not reach in any other way. A few years ago I started from Bassano and crossed Lake Garda after four to five hours: it was an incredible thing, I made videos of the entire route and I still get excited about watching them ».
How is paragliding related to birds of prey?
«They are our travel companions. We use them to find the hot air currents to climb, but over time they have learned to exploit us: you realize that they are looking at you, they see if you are in a current of hot air that rises and they too come there ».
Mount Avena is the home of free flight.
“It has a long tradition and is a very particular point for the mix of a wide valley, a mountain that is not too high and therefore not too exposed to winds at high altitude, a very large landing with the Boscherai structure that over the years has established itself at European level and world”. —
Raffaele Scottini
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