Dario Costa (born 9 May 1980, Manchester, United Kingdom) born to an Iranian mother and an Italian father, is an Italian professional Red Bull Air Race competitor, stunt pilot, aerobatic performer, flight instructor, Pilatus PC6 Porterparadropping pilot and author from Bologna, Italy[1] and is the first ever Italian to qualify, to compete and to win in the Red Bull Air Race World Series.[2] Dario lives in Salzburg, Austria and is also known for various world-first flying stunts and world records including the first and only ever flight through a tunnel with an airplane.
Dario Costa spent his early childhood traveling across North Africa building up his passion for flying, then, at the age of six, moved to Bologna, where he started to learn piloting while at high school where after formal flight training he did his first solo flight at the age of 16 in 1996. Earned his living initially as gardener, swimming pool cleaner, postman and later on as theoretical instructor at his flying club and former high school enabling him few years later, after winning Aeroclub Bologna's first ever scholarship, to obtain his commercial pilot, flight instructor and aerobatic flight-instructor qualifications.
Teaching and competing in aerobatics, Dario evolved with the sport and in 2011, while still teaching full-time, was contest director of the 2011 FAI World Aerobatic Championships and became Chief Flight and Ground Instructor at the Aeroclub Milano.
Dario Costa winning the Red Bull Air Race Challenger Cup in Lake Balaton, 2019
In 2017, Costa became the first airplane pilot to ever fly in synchro with freestyle skier. The skier was the Italian Ian Rocca, the location was the Mottolino Livigno snowpark and the stunt was part of a Lamborghini ad.[3]
In 2018, Costa started competing in the Red Bull Air Race Challenger Cup becoming the first Italian to join this motorsport competition. On his second race got on the podium[4] and on his second season won the 2019 Challenger Cup in Lake Balaton.[5][6][7]
In July 2018, Costa became the first civilian airplane pilot to ever fly and be featured in an air to air photo-shooting over the city of Venice, in Italy.[8] and also became the first pilot, together with Ben Murphy, to ever perform a Red Bull Air Race demo at the Farnborough International Airshow, the world's second-largest show of its kind.[9]
In March 2019, Costa became the first airplane pilot to ever fly low level racing manoeuvres over the Namib Desert, in this occasion for a Hamilton Watch ad.[10]
In 2019, Costa became the first airplane pilot to ever perform and include in his display routine a barrel roll in formation flight together with a helicopter[11] flown by another Italian pilot Mirko Flaim and also became the second pilot to ever include in his display routine multiple consecutive barrel rolls around wingsuit skydivers, in his case the Austrian Red Bull Skydive Team.
In September 2019, Costa has performed at the Airpower, the biggest airshow in Europe.[12]
In June 2020, Costa has performed in the Red Bull movie "Drum the Bull", a music video in which the internationally renowned percussionist Martin Grubinger combines classical music with the sounds of different motorsports, including the modified Zivko Edge 540 flown by Costa, to celebrate the 2020 Formula One World Championship back to back opening races in Spielberg.[13]
In July 2020, Costa became the first airplane pilot to ever fly at low level, in this occasion for the F1 Styrian GP, along the whole Red Bull Ring racetrack for a kind of track preview video never done before.[14]
In 2020, Costa has performed as opening act of the F1 Styrian GP, MotoGP Austrian and Styrian GP's and of the World Rally Championship in Turkey, becoming the first airplane pilot to ever perform as side-act at a F1 and a MotoGP and a World Rally Championship race in the same year.
In October 2020, Costa has performed in two of the break dance competition Red Bull BC One World Finals announcement videos, flying in synchro with dancer Rico Coker.
On 2 January 2021, Costa unveiled a live biometric system installed in his stunt-plane since 2020. A tailor made system based on an original idea from Costa himself and Marcel Stenner which software was then programmed by Red Bull Innovation Team.[15]
On 21 April 2021 was announced that Costa will be racing in the top category of the World Championship Air Race planned to start in early 2022. This championship replaces the Red Bull Air Race and its new top category, replacing the Red Bull Air Race Master Class, is called AeroGP1.
On 4 September 2021 Costa flew through T1 and T2 tunnels on the Northern Marmara Motorway in Istanbul becoming the first ever pilot to fly through a tunnel and setting the Guinness World Record of longest tunnel flown by an airplane.[17]
In May 2022 for his second time, Costa has performed in a Lamborghini ad video campaign, this time for the Huracan Tecnica model launch.[18]
On 20 June 2022 a scientific article about the Tunnel Pass project was published by Costa and written together with Mikel Lucas Garcia de Albeniz Martinez, Barbara Forster, Peter Adrian Leitl and Andreas Flaschger.[19]
In summer 2022 an online videogame called "Red Bull Giro Veloce" was made in which players could choose to use either Costa or F1 driver Max Verstappen to respectively fly or drive in the Red Bull Ring racetrack to win a flight with Dario or a day with Max.[20]
In September 2022 in Polignano a Mare, Italy, Costa became the first airplane pilot to ever fly in synchro with a diver positioning himself in a climbing vertical path beside the descending diver jumping from 27 meters height. Four professional high divers have performed in this project: Alessandro De Rose, Catalin Preda, Artem Silchenko, Aidan Heslop, coordinated by Orlando Duque. From this performance various videos and pictures in honor of Domenico Modugno were produced.[22]
On 2 and 3 September 2022 Costa, together with Mirko Flaim, the Red Bull Skydive Team and The Flying Bulls, have performed at the Airpower 22 international airshow in Zeltweg, Austria, a new version of the Red Bull Aerobatic Triple for the very first time in public.[23]
On 3 November 2022 the book "il Tunnel Perfetto" written in Italian language by Dario Costa and co-writer Biagio D'Angelo was published by Edizioni Minerva. Its English version was announced to be published in early 2023.[24]
After almost a year of work with his partner Prada, in early 2023, the world's first specifically made race and aerobatic flight suit, shoes and gloves were unveiled with two dedicated movies.[25]
In May 2023, Dario and Swift Fuel GmbH, announced their cooperation to use and develop renewable fuels for high performance aviation engines.[26]
Other activities and curiosities
For almost ten years Dario has been a player of the Fortitudo Baseball Bologna competing in the U12, U15 (Cadetti) and U18 (Juniores) Italian Regional and National Baseball Championships till 1996. He has been mainly playing as second baseman and pitcher, but was selected once as relief pitcher for the Italian National Under 18 Team. His baseball uniform number was mainly the 32, which is the number he uses as a race pilot.
Legend: * CAN: Cancelled * DNP: Did not participate * DNS: Did not start * DSQ: Disqualified
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