John Lamont is one of three Wanaka people to be honoured in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

Wanaka resident and renowned warbirds pilot John Lamont has been awarded the Queen’s Service Medal (QSM) for services to aviation. 

As one of New Zealand’s most experienced warbird pilots, John has been an integral element of the Warbirds Over Wanaka (WOW) airshow. He flew in the first Warbirds on Parade airshow in Wanaka in 1988 and is one of only two pilots to have flown in every WOW airshow since and has given countless hours of his time to organising and coordinating its flying programme over the past 22 years. 

John said he was surprised and a little embarrassed to be singled out for the honour especially for “something I’ve had a lot of fun doing”.

Ronald John David Lamont began his flying career in the Royal New Zealand Air Force in 1963, training initially as a radio mechanic before undergoing officer training and pilot training, on both fixed wing and later rotary aircraft.

After 12 years piloting military aircraft and instructing pilots, he departed the RNZAF to fly commercial passenger aircraft with the National Airways Corporation (which became Air New Zealand). 

John flying a Spitfire MkXIV, formerly owned by the Alpine Fighter Collection, over Omaka in 2015.

During this career he became involved with the New Zealand Warbirds Association at Ardmore, in Auckland, where he liaised with other airshow organisers around the country wanting to include Ardmore-based warbirds in their displays.

He flew national and international flights for 30 years before retiring with his wife Bev to Wanaka in 2005 - a place he’d come to know well through his connection with Sir Tim Wallis and his Alpine Fighter Collection and the Warbirds Over Wanaka airshow.

As chief pilot of the Wanaka based Fighter Collection, he has set and implemented standards of piloting rare and restored aircraft which have been adopted throughout the country.

During his career he has flown a huge variety of warbirds in post-restoration tests flights, in aerobatics manoeuvres for airshow displays, and as an instructor, including Kittyhawks, Harvards, a Polikarpov, a Lavochkin La-9 (the world’s only airworthy La-9 at the time) but admits his favourite is the Spitfire.

At Warbirds over Wanaka 2010 John flew this Lavochkin La-9 in an aerobatics display.

“The Spitfire is so iconic, so much history, quite apart from it being a beautiful aircraft,” he said.

He recalled the first time he ever flew a Spitfire at an airshow as his “most memorable day’s flying”. 

In 1993, he was invited to England to fly at Duxford (home of the Imperial War Museums and centre of European aviation history) and was given one day to familiarise himself with the Spitfire, arguably the most famous World War II allied fighter aircraft. The next day he was airborne beside another Kiwi pilot (Ray Hanna) flying Germany’s most famous fighter aircraft.

“Here was I, a country kid from South Canterbury, flying a Spitfire alongside a Messerschmitt, over the white cliffs of Dover.”

He has flown at airshows all over the world, has voluntarily served as an instructor for the New Zealand Warbirds Association for the past 40 years, is a board member for the New Zealand Airshows Association, and a current Incident Manager for Wanaka Search and Rescue.

“I’ve been really fortunate to have had the opportunity to fly such a variety of aircraft and I’m only too happy to give something back to the world of aviation,” John said.

After the last WOW in 2018, he decided to step down as the flying display programme coordinator and has been mentoring a young aerobatics and vintage aircraft pilot, Andy Love, who is a winner of one of the WOW scholarships and runs an aerobatic competition in Blenheim.

Andy was set to coordinate WOW 2020 this Easter when it was cancelled due to the pandemic and will have to wait until 2022 to get his chance. “I’m ready to step away and leave it in his capable hands,” John said.

He hasn’t hung up his flying helmet just yet though and “still keeps his hand in” flying recreationally both rotary and fixed wing aircraft and instructing from time to time.

PHOTOS: Gavin Conroy Classic Aircraft Photography