Flies Legendary Kitzbühel Ski Course In Amazing World-First!

Red Bull is known for its stable of adrenaline junkies who perform feats that most people wouldn’t just shy away from- they’d run as fast as they could in the opposite direction. Pilot Dario Costa just took his Zivko Edge 540 down Kitzbühel’s infamous Streif ski race course in a barnburner of a flight the world has never seen before. Better yet, he lived to tell the tale.

The 44-year-old Costa was obsessed with flying from childhood, but it was seeing a Red Bull Air Race video that changed the course of his life. Ten years later he became the Flight Operations Manager for Red Bull Air Race as well as development pilot on the Extra 330XL and Edge 540.

Flying the Streif preview was challenging not only from preparing the flying itself, but also securing the necessary authorizations. Those required a comprehensive risk assessment, ballistic calculations, flight path strategy, and other details be submitted to the responsible parties.

He memorized the course, just as he would for a Red Bull Air Race. In addition, this was no simple flyover. No. It was a full-on air racing-like attack of the actual course layout with top speeds of 350 kph (about 230 mph). Flying nap-of-the-Earth just feet above the course through all its twists and turns through the alpine forest and downhill dives. He even passed under the Red Bull arch and the Audi finish line arch, within inches of scraping the snow.

Costa said, "Records can be broken, but world-firsts are remembered forever. The particular difficulty of this flight lay in the fact that there's no data that could have been analysed in advance. With no empirical data, no matter how well you prepare, there's always a big question mark as to whether it is even feasible. You have no experience because no one has ever done anything like this before.”

FMI:  www.redbull.com/