News
April 2009
The parachuting pensioner
After jumping out of an airplane just days shy of his 98th birthday, George Moyse is believed to have become Britain’s oldest skydiver.
“It was lovely, I really enjoyed it, I wasn’t frightened at all”, said Mr Moyse, of Bournemouth. “It was the first time but it won't be the last.”
Jumping from an airplane at 10,000 ft (3,048 m) while strapped to an instructor, Mr Moyse plunged in freefall for the first half of his descent, reaching a speed of nearly 120 mph (193 kmh) before opening his parachute and landing safely on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire.
Mr Moyse’s 43-year-old grandson, Edward Brewer, also completed a tandem jump. The two generations’ jumps raised funds for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and the Royal Air Force Association.
Mr Moyse added: “I do not sit around, I get about, I go for a walk every day and I do my own cooking, washing, ironing, everything.... I have just been lucky to be so agile.”