Most people approaching their 90th birthday are slowing down. Don Walker is planning his next skydive.
The Mount Coolum grandfather has just completed his third tandem skydive, making the leap from 13,000 feet only weeks before turning 90, with ambitions to keep jumping every year until he reaches 100.
Mr Walker’s love of aviation stretches back to childhood when he watched military aircraft fly overhead from the forestry reserve at Gallangowan, west of Gympie, where he lived.
“I lived on the forestry reserve during the Second World War with my dad, who was a ranger there, and the C-47s, or as they later became known as, Douglas DC-3s, used to fly over towing gliders,” he said.
“I said to my father, ‘What do they do that for?’ And he said, ‘Oh they have parachutists in them and they jump out and go to war,’ and I said, ‘Jump out of an aeroplane, why would they do that?’ And he said, ‘Oh, they’ve got parachutes. And so they just float down to the ground’.
“And so that’s basically where my love of aeroplanes and parachuting started.”
His younger brother also fuelled that interest after completing a solo static-line jump in Mount Isa during the 1970s.
“He spoke so much about that, that it made me want to do it too, but I don’t think they’d let me now at my age,” Mr Walker said.
Mr Walker was wearing reproduction World War I aviator goggles during his latest jump at 89, however they were swept from his face during freefall.
“They’re in a paddock somewhere over near Bli Bli now,” he said.
Mr Walker first took the plummet on the eve of his 70th birthday after his daughter and grandchildren bought him a tandem skydive as a birthday present.
Nearly two decades later, he said the excitement hasn’t faded.
“The actual experience of jumping out of the plane was absolutely brilliant,” he said.
“We get up to, I don’t know, about 14,000 feet and then they say ‘sit in the door there and put your legs out’ and I think, ‘Oh, what’s going to happen next?’ And then suddenly you’re falling through the air at a tremendous rate, and then they pull the cord and then all of a sudden everything goes completely quiet and still and you can see and hear anything around you. It’s just magical, absolutely magical.”
Mr Walker completed his latest jump alongside one of his 19 grandchildren, Scott, who was also skydiving that day.
Mr Walker said age hasn’t presented many obstacles beyond some pressure in his ears during descent.
“My only problem is my ears,” he said.
“Pressure in my ears builds up and it really, really hurts. But if you continue to swallow, it disappears.”
Skydive Australia chief commercial officer Fiona Stillwell said there was an entire generation of older Aussies like Don who were increasingly seeking out high-octane bucket list activities.
Data from Skydive Australia shows a growing interest in skydiving from older Australians, with 14,491 people over the age of 50 deciding to jump since 2023. Of these people, more than 269 of them were over the age of 75.
World Skydiving Day is July 11.
