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I like my Saturday mornings slow, unscheduled, and with enough time for me to shuffle between the kettle and bed at a leisurely pace.

But I acknowledge that there are others out there who like to be a bit more adventurous during the waking hours.

Like famous Italian stunt pilot Dario Costa, who used this past Saturday morning (September 4) to break a world record for the longest flight through a tunnel.

Before most people had even had breakfast, Costa fired up his specially modified Zivko Edge 540 race plane in a very tight space in the Turkish city of Istanbul.

He then entered the Guinness Book of Records by flying a distance of 2,26 kilometres in 43,44 seconds, at a speed of 245 kilometres per hour, through two tight tunnels.

The 41-year-old had spent a year preparing, per CNN, in his quest to become the first person to nail the longest flight through a tunnel.

Watch Costa do it, with absolute precision:

Here’s Costa describing the experience via Red Bull:

“Everything seemed to be happening so fast, but when I got out of the first tunnel, the plane started to move to the right because of the crosswinds and in my head, everything slowed down in that moment,” explained Costa. “I reacted and just focused on getting the plane back on the right path to enter the other tunnel. Then in my mind, everything sped up all over again.”

…“I’d never flown in a tunnel in my life – nobody had ever done it – so there was a big question mark in my head whether everything would go as we expected,” said Costa. “It was a big relief, of course, but big, big happiness was the main emotion. For me, it’s another dream come true.”

The Tunnel Pass flight was recognised with a Guinness World Record for Longest Tunnel Flown through with an Airplane (1 730 metres) and Costa was presented with the official certificate:

Image: Nuri Yilmazer for Red Bull Content Pool

Go, Costa, Go!

[sources:cnn&redbull]