SMOKIN’ GUN
With a trophy cupboard bulging, and a lust for flying matched by few others, World, European and French champion, Mathieu Rouanet, is at the top of his game. Michel Carnet gets to know one of paramotoring’s most high-profile characters
Mathieu Rouanet saunters around the airfield, fuel can in hand, an eternally burning Marlboro Red pursed in his lips. His shaggy-dog hair and kicked-back “c’est la vie” attitude belies the aerobatic expertise and a flair for competition flying that has seen the 30-year-old scoop every major title in the sport in recent years.
PM:
What first got you involved in flying?
MR:
I was fortunate to have a keen aviator for a mother. She flies sailplanes and hang gliders and goes skydiving. She was even flying when she was pregnant with me, so I guess my attraction to these sports must have been imprinted from the very beginning.
In the nineties the whole family took up paragliding and my solo flying career officially began at thirteen. I was a rebel at school, and paragliding was a good way for me to escape to a happier environment without too many constraints. I was lucky to live in the Southern French Alps, right next to some of the best sites in the world.
My approach to paragliding was definitely head-on and fearless, and I was attracted to aerobatic flying from the start, in the days when acro was very much frowned upon. It wasn’t all plain sailing: there were quite a few spectacular crashes and broken bones on the way. But luckily, both my technique and the wings were improving over time. Paragliding ruled my life for years and eventually I became a full time instructor in Annecy in the Northern French Alps.
PM:
As a professional paraglider pilot working in one of the best Alpine flying sites, what made you consider paramotoring in the first place?
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