Bush Sr. leaps from plane on 85th birthday

Former U.S. president George H.W. Bush marked his 85th birthday on Friday the same way he did his 75th and 80th birthdays: He leaped from a plane and zoomed downward at more than 160 km/h in freefall before parachuting safely to a spot near his oceanfront home.

Bush made the tandem jump from 3,200 metres with Sgt. 1st Class Mike Elliott of the Army's Golden Knights, who guided them to a gentle landing on the lawn of St. Ann's Church.

"It's a great, exhilarating feeling," Bush said after he was removed from his harness. "I don't feel a day over 84."

He said he enjoyed the jump so much that he planned to do it again when he turns 90.

When he was president, Bush was an avid jogger, speed golfer, fisherman and tennis player. He said he has slowed down since then, but he doesn't intend to stop moving.

He told reporters that he jumped Friday for two reasons: to experience the exhilaration of free-falling and to show that seniors can remain active and do fun things.

"Just because you're an old guy, you don't have to sit around drooling in the corner," Bush said. "Get out and do something. Get out and enjoy life."

All five of Bush's children, including former U.S. president George W. Bush, were there to watch Bush jump, along with 14 grandchildren, two brothers and a sister.

Bush's first parachute jump came when his plane was shot down over the Pacific in 1944 during the Second World War. He bailed out at 457 metres after a bombing mission over ChiChi Jima. His two crewmates did not make it.

In 1997, at the age of 72, Bush fulfilled a wartime promise he made to himself that someday he would jump from a plane for fun by hopping out over Yuma, Ariz.He jumped again on his 75th birthday in Texas.

His days of solo parachuting ended at age 80 when bad weather forced him to scrap his plan to go alone.

The skydiving jump marked Bush's seventh parachute leap from an airplane. His last jump was two years agoat the reopening of his presidential library at Texas A&M University. He made that jump unannounced after hip replacement surgery.