09/05/2020
From Sicily to Malta: a paramotor’s trip
In September 2019 I made the paramotor crossing from Sicily to Malta, it was a special adventure because it was a matter of flying in open sea on a day predetermined not by the favorable weather conditions but by the Maltese authorities, since you can not fly paramotor in Malta and the authorization they gave was valid only for that day.
The program included a flight of about 3 hours with landing on a heliport in Gozo.
The night before the crossing I prepared my equipment and made a final check at my Vittorazi Moster 185 but I already knew that he would never betray me.
I looked at the weather forecast, there were storms on Malta, so there could be a risk of getting stuck on the sea and not being able to reach the coast until the weather would allow it.
However, I decided not to add an extra tank to my equipment because with the fuel consumption of my Moster the main tank alone would have been enough.
The following morning the weather conditions were very good, but looking at the horizon in the direction of Malta you could already see heaps with vertical development.
To make the crossing we were 2 pilots, both with Vittorazi Moster 185 engine mounted on Fly Products chassis, and for safety we had the support of a boat.
The flight was fantastic, the low noise and low vibrations of the motor gave a very good comfort.
After about 90 minutes of flight I found myself playing low near the surface of the sea with dolphins, on the horizon I could only see water, the sound of my engine in level flight was like music at that moment.
The dolphins left after a while, Malta was getting closer and my attention was focused on the big mounds that were getting closer and closer. I looked at the tank, I still had a lot of fuel, the consumption had been less than I had expected.
When we arrived a few kilometers from the land we realized that both on Malta and on the island of Gozo it was raining, the only part where it wasn’t raining was on the little island of Comino which is between Malta and Gozo.
A helicopter passed by for a check and then disappeared to the south.
We decided to wait in the air for the conditions to improve so that we could reach the established landing but after a while the situation got worse, the air became quite turbulent, it started raining above us and whirlwinds formed on Gozo. Waiting in the air was no longer possible and we went to land on the small island, near a kiosk that allowed us to shelter from the rain.
From Malta then we returned to Sicily with the ship carrying all the equipment on our shoulders and there you really understand the importance of having a light engine.
