Any other Paolo Colombani fans?

Hi.
I am a longstanding Tintin fan and have always had Paolo Colombani as one of my favourite characters from the series.
I liked him the first time I saw him in Flight 714, even though he features only very briefly and we know virtually nothing about him.
Paolo strikes you as a realistic character, a Dean Martin-like Italian from the Jet Set generation, who is most probably a serial womaniser and may have had links with the Mafia.
Despite working for Rastapopoulos, I don't instantly form an impression of him as an evil or sinister person, as I would with the ice-cold Hans Boehm.
Granted, Paolo is engaged in criminal activity but one must not forget that he is a professional pilot first and foremost.
From the brief glimpses of his involvement, I cannot help but feel admiraton for him (some baddies are also worth admiration).
One senses that he is in this only for his own gain; he simply wants to do the job required of him, that is, get the plane onto the island, with no wish to be involved any further in Rastapopoulos's ridiculous delusional plans.
He comes across as sharp and cool with his witty slang remarks, and hard but in a more refined manner than a simple thug. Above all, I see him as a professional who is extremely capable in his job as a pilot.
Maybe with his limited appearance, I am giving the man more credit than he's worth.
But am I the only one who feels a certain charisma in, and admiration for, Paolo?

Not really. When I first saw Colombani he didn't come across as being much. You'd probably see him once and never again. He is similar to Manolo, that "he-looks-like-a-thug-to-me" character in terms of appearance. Anyway, he was not the chief villain of either the hijacking nor the plot, of which Spalding and Rastapopoulos respectively were the big players.

Me neither. He's just a thug for hire, in my humble point of view.

Personally, I've always been very intrigued by Marc Charlet (Mark Falconer in the English translation), who strikes me as a kind of grown-up, Indiana Jones-like version of Tintin. Heck, he even wears plusfours. I could just imagine his adventures together with professor Bergamotte!...

I loved Hercules Tarragon from that album. He always struck me as a real character; it's a pity we didn't get to know him better.

Him being a bad guy, I didn't like him much, although I did have some admiration for him for landing the plane on the short runway and against the odds.

Yes, that's the difference, He is a sort of baddie who at the same time is cool, a kind of wiseguy with wit and a charm that other baddeis lack. Heck, I wouldn't mind having a pint with him in the Kiltoch Arms! He probably has a lot of stories to tell.
(This is probbaly a topic for another thread, but) Most Tintin baddies are either ridiculous characters or simply bad but devoid of any character. Very few, perhaps with the exception of Colonel Boris or Dr. Muller, are ice-cold evil people who actually frighten with their nastiness. Otherwise, there are countless baddies who have a fallible and laughable side to them, Rastapopoulos being the best example.

True. I like capable villians. There's this saying among comics (and fiction) that "A hero is only as good as his rogue's gallery". (Rogue's gallery = Collection of Villians and Nemeses)

Pitting your hero against worthwhile and competent bad guys makes for a better story, I think. There's nothing really heroic if the opposition consists of a bunch of inepts who always trip over their own feet.

Hm... One character I liked who started out as one of the bad guys was that Mosquito pilot, Poitr Skut.

I find it cool though that Colombani could land on that small island, when both he himself and Szut immediately could see that it was nearly impossible. Say what you want about him otherwise, but I have to admire his skills as a pilot.

Well, to me, he looked pretty panicky and out of control after the nose wheel burst. He himself thought the plane would crash. I doubt it whether he could have made a safe landing if the net had not been there.

But when you think about how dangerous the situation was, he still managed to pull the landing off as well as anybody could hope for. After all, all of the passengers remained unharmed.