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.
23 Facts About Dario Costa
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In October 2013, Dario Costa joined the Red Bull Air Race World Championship as flight operations manager, development and ferry pilot.
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In 2016, Dario Costa became the first Italian to ever qualify as Red Bull Air Race World Championship race pilot.
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In 2017, Dario Costa became the first airplane pilot to ever fly in synchro with freestyle skier.
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In 2018, Dario Costa started competing in the Red Bull Air Race Challenger Cup becoming the first Italian to join this motorsport competition.
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In July 2018, Dario 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.
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In March 2019, Dario 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.
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In 2019, Dario 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 flown by another Italian pilot Mirko Flaim and 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.
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In September 2019, Dario Costa has performed at the Airpower, the biggest airshow in Europe.
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In June 2020, Dario 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 Dario Costa, to celebrate the 2020 Formula One World Championship back to back opening races in Spielberg.
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In July 2020, Dario 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.
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In 2020, Dario 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.
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In October 2020, Dario 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.
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On 2 January 2021, Dario Costa unveiled a live biometric system installed in his stunt-plane since 2020.
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On 20 January 2021 Dario Costa unveiled a tailor made seat based on the current F1 and World Rally Championship seats adapted by Red Bull Athlete Performance Center physiotherapist David Denifl together with Austrian motorcycle road racer August Auinger and race car driver Bernhard Auinger.
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On 21 April 2021 was announced that Dario Costa will be racing in the top category of the World Championship Air Race planned to start in early 2022.
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On 4 September 2021 Dario 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.
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In May 2022 for his second time, Dario Costa has performed in a Lamborghini ad video campaign, this time for the Huracan Tecnica model launch.
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On 20 June 2022 a scientific article about the Tunnel Pass project was published by Dario Costa and written together with Mikel Lucas Garcia de Albeniz Martinez, Barbara Forster, Peter Adrian Leitl and Andreas Flaschger.
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On 26 August 2022 Dario Costa gave a Ted Talk at the TedX Cortina.
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In September 2022 in Polignano a Mare, Italy, Dario 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.
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In 2024, Dario Costa becomes the first Italian and youngest ever to win the Living Legends of Aviation "Bob Hoover - Freedom of Flight" award.
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Dario Costa has been mainly playing as second baseman and pitcher, but was selected once as relief pitcher for the Italian National Under 18 Team.