An Italian pilot recently made aviation history by landing a small plane on a moving train and then taking off again, becoming the first pilot to achieve this feat in world aviation history.
According to the European Magazine, on February 15th, the Italian aerobatics pilot named Dario Costa piloted a Zivko Edge 540 aerobatic plane to successfully land on a moving train in Afyonkarahisar, Turkey.
He first landed the small plane on the 9th container of the cargo train and then executed a vertical takeoff just seconds later while the train was traveling at a speed of 120 kilometers per hour.
To match the speed of the train, Costa reduced the plane’s speed to 87 kilometers per hour during the approach, close to its minimum controllable airspeed. The entire process – approach, landing, and takeoff – along the 2.5-kilometer railway line was completed in just 50 seconds.
Costa, a professional aerobatics pilot under the Red Bull brand of Austria, flew a plane with “Red Bull” markings. It is powered by a 400-horsepower engine, with a wingspan of 7.5 meters, a length of 7 meters, and a landing gear width of 1.7 meters.
In a press release from Red Bull, Costa said, “The train landing is one of the most challenging and difficult projects in my career. There are too many variables to measure, but the biggest challenge is blind landing on a very small moving runway – relying only on cognitive abilities and flight skills.”
Unlike traditional runway approaches, the descent angle of the small plane and the forward motion of the train kept the landing area out of Costa’s view. Without visual glide path, he had to rely on cognitive abilities and flight skills to complete this challenge, known as blind landing.
The strong turbulence from the train and the constantly changing wind speeds made this challenge require high precision from the pilot. To land smoothly, Costa continuously made adjustments to maintain the longitudinal and lateral stability of the aircraft.
The aviation consultant for this project, Filippo Barbero, praised Costa, likening him to a magician, saying, “The key is alignment with the train, so precision must be absolutely perfect, and he nailed it.”
The organizers of the event stated that this operation marked the first successful takeoff and landing of an aircraft on a moving train at full speed, setting a new benchmark for what they call precision flying.
Costa is no stranger to high-risk precision flying. In a previous report by Dajiyuan, in 2021, he flew the same Red Bull plane at an average speed of 245 kilometers per hour through two tunnels of the Catalca Tunnels in Turkey and successfully ascended. This achievement set a Guinness World Record.
(A short video related to this news can be viewed here.)