A 95-year-old British great-grandfather from Cheltenham has became the world's oldest wing walker. Ivor Button took to the skies strapped to the top of a plane which took off from Staverton Airport, in Gloucestershire.
He beat the previous record set by late Tom Lackey, who was 93 when he performed the stunt in 2013. Widower Ivor said: ''I’m of sound mind! I was not scared. I was more concerned about getting cold.''
Ivor, who has 17 grandchildren and step-grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, is not new to skyward ventures - having already enjoyed gliding, ballooning and micro-lighting. He was hit with the flying bug early on - in 1932 when he was six years old his parents took him to Sir Alan Cobham’s Flying Circus.
It gave thousands of people their first-ever flying experience - in an age when flying was outside the experience of most people. Dad-of-four Ivor, said: “They paid ten shillings for all of us to go up in an open cockpit aircraft. I was so small I couldn’t see over the cockpit, but I must have been strapped in. I was most disappointed when I went back to school the next day. They didn’t believe me, but I just loved it.”
Ivor, who worked as a design engineer, left school at 14-and-a-half and joined the ground crew at Staverton Airport - during war time. He said: “It was the best job in the world and I was lucky to enjoy the odd flight from Staverton.
"There was a navigational training school there then and I asked the pilot if I could come on one of their practice runs. He said 'hop in' and I was put up in the gun turret, but there were no guns there of course. 'It was a practise bombing raid and we flew down the Severn Estuary dropping smoke bombs. It was a wonderful time.”
According to Guinness World Records, the previous oldest wing walker was Thomas Lackey.
He was aged 93 years and 100 days when completed a wing walk between Stranraer, Scotland, and Derry, Northern Ireland, in 2013. Tom landed safely at City of Derry airport after a one-hour, 21-minute journey across the Irish Sea.
Ivor's sky-high adventure raised money charity Ataxia UK - a condition which affects co-ordination, balance and speech, and is suffered by some of Ivor's family. In most cases there's no cure for ataxia and supportive treatment to control the symptoms is necessary. To donate visit Ivor's JustGiving page here
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