TRENT. Having in mind what to do with your life is an enigma that not everyone can solve, a bit as if it were the greatest existential puzzle to which we are all exposed, sooner or later. Silvia BarullI, thirty-year-old and just 18 years old, does not seem to have been affected by doubts of this type, judging by her very peculiar story. Silvia obtained her flying license at the age of 17, on April 5th, just before her eighteenth birthday, the following day. “A nice birthday present,” she says about it.
«Who hasn’t dreamed of flying as a child? I discovered this world thanks to my father, who is a helicopter pilot for the Guardia di Finanza, but I approached the world of aeronautics on my own, I fell in love: he has incredible adrenaline.”
The choice, which is not insignificant in terms of the weight it can have on the life of a teenager, was made in 2023, when she started the course for the patent, the Ppl: «I started attending the scientific school for the first two years , I was headed towards tennis, but then I turned towards the aeronautical technician, at the “Martino Martini” in Mezzolombardo, where there is the possibility of enrolling in “aircraft management”: once the exams are over I would like to try for aeronautics, now I’m in fourth grade.”
Making everything fit together, between life, professionalism – linked to the course and school – and even a bit of free time, necessary with the mental load to which she was subjected, must not have been easy, but Silvia is experiencing the full satisfaction of having succeeded in its objective: «The flight school takes many hours, it would be 100, but with Italfly, which has an agreement with the school, you do 120: first there is the theoretical, then the practical. The theory is 10 subjects, I finished school, with two returns a week and I was here from 7pm to 9pm. They were long months, the only day off was Sunday, sometimes Monday: now it’s a priceless emotion.”
The satisfaction of having one of the youngest riders in Italy at home was also the father’s, Tommaso Barulli, Guardia di Finanza helicopter pilot: «The feeling at home was “strange”. My parents were happy, but there was apprehension, it’s understandable when you fly alone. The airplane is a single piston engine, a bit like a car, but a small one. At home there is a bit of affectionate contrast, I drive planes, dad drives helicopters”, she adds.
For his part, the father specified his pride: «She was very good at reconciling everything, from excellent grades to school. There was no external influence in her choice: seeing her fly away at 17 there was also a bit of anxiety.”
Silvia doesn’t seem to have felt that anxiety they experienced from the ground in her navigations: «I prefer the idea of flying alone, there’s no pressure. I would never have expected to embark on a journey like this.” Between a story of the practical exam – a five-hour guided tour by plane, between Bolzano and Trento, on various circuits – and that of the theoretical exam – which lasted several hours, with a multiple choice test on the Invalsi model – there was an opportunity to also collect the opinion of Luca Nabacino, general manager of Italfly, the flight school where Silvia Barulli obtained her Ppl: «There is someone who at this age has succeeded, but they are an extremely small number, you can count them on your fingers of one hand. There is satisfaction, we are lucky enough to have an institute that gives us life with the young people who arrive here, it is obvious to be happy to see a young person who enters our world and is so passionate about it, who wants to do it in a professional way.”
Professionalism, in the future, seems to be a key, because Silvia’s dream, having reached such an important goal before even getting a car license, seems to be aeronautics: «I see myself in Pozzuoli, at the academy, then maybe in Lecce for the trainer, who at the moment is the old Frecce Tricolori, but we’ll see later.”
