Pink Bull pilot Dario Costa has accomplished what’s being described as “a world-first” aviation stunt – touchdown and taking off from a shifting cargo practice touring at 120 km/h in Afyonkarahisar, Türkiye.
The thrilling daredevil stunt passed off on February 15, 2026, alongside a 2.5 km railway part, the place Costa piloted a Zivko Edge 540 aerobatic plane onto the ninth container of a shifting freight practice earlier than accelerating right into a vertical climb from the identical platform. The complete sequence – strategy, touchdown, stabilization and take-off – was accomplished inside a 50-second window.
To match the practice’s most operational velocity of 120 km/h (65 knots), Costa lowered the plane to a near-minimum controllable airspeed of 87 km/h (47 knots), considerably under its traditional touchdown velocity of 148 km/h.
Through the ultimate strategy, the touchdown floor remained outdoors his field of regard because of the plane’s 8-degree pitch perspective and the peak of the container, requiring what Pink Bull described as “blind” alignment primarily based on cognitive coaching and exact velocity synchronization.
Steady aerodynamic corrections had been wanted to counter turbulence and unstable airflow generated by the shifting practice.
Costa stated: “Practice Touchdown was one of the vital difficult and demanding initiatives of my profession. There have been so many variables to measure, however the biggest check was studying to land blind on a really small shifting runway – relying solely on cognitive and flying abilities.
Regardless of the issue, it was a terrific expertise. For the primary time, an plane efficiently interacted with a shifting practice, bringing collectively the oldest motorised transportation with the most recent. It was a fancy mission that required precision, teamwork, and belief – and I’m proud we executed it as deliberate.”
Preparation for the try included months of aerodynamic evaluation, simulation work and specialised “time–motion–anticipation” coaching on the Pink Bull Athlete Efficiency Centre in Austria.
Croatian hypercar producer Rimac additionally performed a job within the preparation part. Throughout a three-day check program at Pula Airport, Costa used Rimac’s Nevera and Nevera R hypercars as high-precision shifting reference platforms to rehearse velocity matching and alignment on a shifting goal. Rimac engineers moreover developed a custom-fitted cockpit seat and contributed aerodynamic experience.
Mate (pronounced Ma-tay) Rimac, whose household title is on the automobiles, stated: “This mission is the proper expression of what Rimac stands for. Dario wanted to coach one thing that had by no means been completed earlier than, which meant there was no established methodology and no current resolution.
“Our hypercars gave him an actual, shifting, high-speed reference level; one thing solely a handful of automobiles on the planet might present at that precision and velocity. If you end up pushing into fully unknown territory, you want instruments that match your ambition. We had been proud to be a part of that.”
Costa, who beforehand flew by two freeway tunnels in Istanbul in 2021, now provides the moving-train touchdown to a profession that features greater than 20 aviation world-firsts and 5 Guinness World Information.
