Your Never Too Old to Fly

Here is an interesting piece had the opportunity to put together at work.

Dubuque, Iowa resident, Steve Walker, is doing what some consider to be amazing at an age that others consider old. The 67-year old is pursuing a love of skydiving.

"I've been interested in aviation and jumping since my teenage years, but could never get up the nerve to do it until I finally decided it was now or never," Walker said.

"Since 1992 I've made 750 jumps in seven different countries, including Australia and several in Europe and I just completed jumping in all 50 states. I'm not the first one to do this, but I don't think too many have."

Walker said his first jump was in Lancaster, Wis. at the age of 49. Soon Walker realized he was hooked on the activity and he started carrying his parachute on business trips.

"Before I knew it I had jumped in several states, so I decided to try jumping in all 50 states."

Walker said that he completed jumps in 42 states, including Hawaii, between 1992 and 2007. In 1994, following several jumps, Walker decided he wanted to skydive in all 50 states.

"After I retired from John Deere in May, 2008 I began concentrating on the remaining eight states," he said.

"My wife, Pat, and I have made four trips since then, starting with Vermont and Rhode Island in June, South Dakota, Wyoming and Colorado in July, then Alaska in September and we just finished up with Utah and Nevada."

Walker explained that some factors have to fall in place before making a jump.

"Jumping in different places is complicated by the need for good weather and reasonable winds," he said. "Several states, such as New Hampshire, West Virginia and Wyoming, don't have organized places to jump. There have been a few states that required two visits to complete the jump and other states, like Wyoming, where I had to hire a pilot from a drop zone in South Dakota to fly me to an airport in Wyoming."

Walker added that his first jump in Oklahoma, was at a drop zone near Norman, was postponed due to the plane nosing over on landing just before he was scheduled to go up. "I finally made a few jumps in Cushing in 1994, making Oklahoma my fourth state to jump in."

Walker completed the 50 states by skydiving in the town of Mesquite, Nevada on Oct. 22 and he is thrilled that he has obtained his goal. "My feeling is a great sense of pride in completing a goal that turned out to be much more involved than I expected when I started it 16 years ago. Each new State brought it's own special challenges. In Nevada I literally kissed the ground when I landed, mostly because it was the 50th state, but also because it was in mountainous terrain with a very small landing area. I was indeed happy to be back on the ground safely."

Walker said retirement allowed him to finish his goal. "I wouldn't have finished the 50 states this year except that retirement allowed me the time to travel to the remaining eight states."