+VIDEO Now, you might think that skiing down the Kitzbühel Streif — the most terrifying downhill course in the world — is a mad idea. And you’d be right. But you know what’s even madder? Flying down it. In an aeroplane. At 350km/h.
Enter Dario Costa, a man who clearly woke up one day and thought, You know what? Gravity is for other people.
Costa, an Italian pilot with a lifelong obsession for defying physics, took his Zivko Edge 540 and did something that can only be described as completely and utterly bonkers –threading his way down the legendary ski course in a way that no sane person has ever attempted before. Why? Because, as he puts it, “Records can be broken, but world firsts live forever.” And also because, let’s be honest, he’s not wired like the rest of us.
Now, let’s talk about this course. The Streif is 3,312 metres of pure, unfiltered terror, featuring stomach-churning drops, ridiculous gradients (85 percent in some places!), and names like Mausefalle (Mousetrap) that suggest only bad things happen there. For the skiers, it’s a life-or-death mission. For Costa? Just another day at the office.
But, of course, this wasn’t just a case of hopping in a plane and going wee down the mountain. Oh no. The Flying Bulls team had to sort out permits, run ballistic calculations (yes, ballistic calculations), and work out how to make this whole thing even remotely survivable.
Once in the air, Costa had zero room for error. Too fast, and he’d overshoot a turn and become a rather expensive snowplough. Too slow, and he’d stall—at which point, well, let’s just say the mountain would win. And then there were the 10g forces trying to turn him into a human pancake.
And just to add an extra level of why-would-you-do-this, Costa had to navigate two extremely low Red Bull arches while hurtling towards the finish line, all while dealing with the fact that everything around him was white. No depth perception. No landmarks. Just instinct, reaction speed, and what I can only assume is a complete lack of fear.
The result? A world first. A heart-stopping, logic-defying, absolutely absurd feat of aviation. And honestly? It was brilliant.
