An Italian pilot has set a world record by becoming the first to fly an aircraft through a tunnel. Dario Costa actually flew through two tunnels on a freeway in Turkey on Saturday to claim five Guinness records. Costa took off in the first tunnel and flew its length in an Extra 300 at about five feet AGL. He had about 15 feet of clearance on the wingtips and flew at about 140 knots.
Not sure where I left my EFB, but 1.5 miles in 44 secs seems closer to 120 (knots or mph, depending on what kind of miles)…unless it was kilometers via car, 120 is still beyond any of my signoffs,
Probably want an ezpass…tossing quarters at the cash basket could be a problem.
Uh OH!! Possible subject matter for another (great) PB “Bad for Aviation” video.
OR … Martha Lunken should tell the FAA, “How come HE gets to do that and I can’t?”
OR … she could just move to Turkey and fly anyhow.
Michael Goulian probably wouldn’t be in a guest vignette in any such PB video, however?
Saaay … I just watched a video about how they make video stories on BBCA … maybe PB should make one of himself rolling around on the hangar floor laughing heartily as he’s making his funny videos.
It’s Labor Day weekend and the aviation news is slow …
You get awards for that because…you stop traffic for hours, you jeopardize every safety lesson you preach about, you risk damage to millions of dollars worth of material and workmanship, you risk the pilots life and anyone else in or near the tunnel.
Another Darwin Candidate exploiting other users and distracting police from preventing robbery, rape, and murder. Shameful!
With the Red Bull outfit complicit. May or may not have the decency to say “Don’t try stunts while bombed on our booze.” Some marketing people are irresponsible idiots.
Most every population can be statistically described along a bell shaped curve graph. The majority of a population, about 68%, occupies the center portion. The remaining 32% is split equally on the edges. When describing human emotion, the left edge is composed of people who are cautious. The right edge is composed of people who engage in life threatening activities. Aviators tend to occupy that right edge. One piece of anecdotal evidence supporting this is that almost all conversations, acronyms, stories, and training about flying include or begin with the word “safety”. Most people don’t have to be reminded to avoid life threatening behaviors. As a matter of routine, aviators do.
Disagree. True aviators exercise caution IMO. Many non-aviators are not cautious, such as yahoo motor vehicle drivers (motorcyclists especially, one in my region killed himself by passing traffic on the right, his eagerness was interrupted by an out-of-place roadside barrier).
I guess it is a risk/reward thing. Sometimes you just want to shoot-the-moon. If you REALLY want to do it and the people affected agree, why not? It’s your life.
That being said, my father told me of the time he flew an SNJ through Hangar 1 at Moffett field. It was not long after WW-II and there were lots of young pilots with nothing to do and lots of avgas to do it with. Needless to say, many questionable things happened back then. (He looped the Golden Gate in an F8F too.) I liked best the end of his story which went, “As soon as I entered the hangar I realized this was a REALLY BAD idea. Unfortunately I was committed.”
I had a similar kind of decision to make. After flying around the world following Amelia Earhart’s route I had an airplane with which to fly Lindbergh’s route and set the speed record from NY to Paris. I would just have to fly over the N Atlantic in February to take advantage of a positive phase of the N Atlantic oscillation and get the winds that would let me shatter the old record. I had to consider the threats, i.e., engine failure and icing, consider the risk of possibly dying in the cold water of the Atlantic, and then balance that with the reward – a plaque on my wall that said I had the speed record.
His feat puts the structure of the tunnels at risk. I don’t know specifically how much damage this aerobatic plane could cause when it strikes the lighting, ventilation, and concrete of that structure. I doubt that his liability insurance covers this type of flying. If the structure is a public utility, then it’s the tax payers who are forced to pay. Unless, of course, the tunnel has insurance that covers this sort of risk…or that an insurer would even offer this type of coverage.
