Leap of faith in old age
At the age of 74, Wollongong man Gordon Turner, jokes that he got too old to play cricket, so instead, he started jumping out of aeroplanes. The veteran skydiver last week was the oldest of 13 adrenaline junkies, aged over 60 years, to create the nation’s first sequential formation skydive.
At the age of 74, Wollongong man Gordon Turner, jokes that he got too old to play cricket, so instead, he started jumping out of aeroplanes.
The veteran skydiver, who has executed 1,500 jumps over nearly 30 years, last week was the oldest of 13 adrenaline junkies, aged over 60 years, to create what has been described as the nation’s first sequential formation skydive over Toogoolawah, northwest of Brisbane.
The group, dubbed Skydivers Over Sixty, or SOS (pictured), leapt from 14,000 feet and have nearly 50,000 jumps and 848 years life experience between them.
The skydive was organised by Alan White, from Toogoolawah, who runs a jumpsuit manufacturing business, and included The Ramblers Skydiving Centre chief instructor, David McEvoy, as well as a range of retirees, a pilot, a geophysicist and a limo driver.
The youngest of the group was 60 year old, Lea Rickwood, a retired wine representative who has jumped just more than 500 times.
Describing himself as a ‘big kid’, Mr Turner tells DPS News he lives by the saying: ’Growing old is compulsory; growing up is optional.’
“We’re just big kids who just want to have some fun. We try to enjoy ourselves and not let the fact that we’re getting a bit older slow us down,” he says.
