Seniors break skydiving record

A group of skydiving seniors near Darwin has broken an Australian world skydiving record.

A flying saucer formed outside of Darwin on Friday but it was no UFO - it was 17 skydiving seniors.

Members of the Skydivers Over Sixty (SOS) group have claimed a new Australian record for the largest group formation dive for jumpers over 60.

This beats the previous record of a 14-way formation set in Toogoolawah, Queensland, in 2008.

"It looked like a big doughnut," skydiver Nigel Brennan told AAP.

Having turned 60 a month ago, he just qualified for the group's record-breaking attempt, and has been jumping for 33 years.

"We had a six-blade base with everyone facing in, and then there were people holding onto every leg, so there was a circle around the base people," he said.

Participants were aged from 60 to 74 years, with a combined total of over 35,000 jumps.

More than 100 skydivers from all around Australia have come to Darwin this week for a biannual skydiving conference to train together and attempt to break records.

"They've been sniffing towards the record and training towards it all week here," Mr Brennan said.

"We've been doing discipline dives and gradually growing bigger and bigger and bigger, and yesterday we thought, let's bolt this thing together."

Last year in California Mr Brennan was part of a group to break the Australian record for largest group skydive of over-40s, with 42 jumpers.

At 74, Gordon Turner was the oldest skydiver in the record-breaking group.

"It was such a buzz," he said.

Some of the group celebrated with a cup of tea but most of them have continued jumping throughout the day.


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Source: AAP


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