Dario Costa

Dario Costa spent his early childhood traveling across North Africa building up his passion for flying, than, at the age of six, moved to Bologna, in Italy, 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.

In October 2013, Costa joined the Red Bull Air Race World Championship as flight operations manager, development and ferry pilot.

In 2016, Costa became the first Italian to ever qualify as Red Bull Air Race World Championship race pilot.[3]

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.[4]

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[5] and on his second season won the 2019 Challenger Cup in Lake Balaton.[6][7][8]

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. [9] 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. [10]

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.[11]

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 [12] 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.[13]

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. [14]

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. [15]

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.

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.

In October and November 2020 Dario was spotted in Rome performing as stuntman for the movie Mission: Impossible 7. [16]

• In 2015 Costa was awarded by the Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano with the "Medaglia al valore atletico" (Medal for athletic prowess).

• On 5 August 2018 Costa was featured in a picture over Venice which was included in "The best images in sport" by The Sunday Times.[17]

• On 8 November 2019 Costa was awarded by the Italian Region Emilia Romagna for his sport achievements[18]