WONZ 242 – John Lamont

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Guest: John Lamont

Host: Dave Homewood

Recorded: 14th of July 2021

Released:  20th of August 2021

Duration:  1 hour 23 minutes 57 seconds

In this episode Dave Homewood caught up with well known and respected airshow pilot John Lamont, while they were both visiting Ardmore Airport. As a child, John lived next to the Omaka Aerodrome and he caught the aviation bug from a young age. He joined the Royal New Zealand Air Force in 1963, and trained on Harvards and Devons, and became an instructor at Pilot Training Squadron for two and a half years. He was then posted to No. 3 Squadron RNZAF, flying the Bell 47 Sioux first, and then later onto the Bell UH-1H Iroquois.

Posted to Singapore in the early 1970’s, he then served with No. 41 Squadron there on Iroquois. And then when he came home from that posting he returned to Wigram at the Central Flying School. He decided to leave the RNZAF and joined Air New Zealand, flying the Friendship, the DC-8, the 737, the 767, the 747-200 and the 747-400. After he left the airline aged 60, he flew helicopters commercially at Wanaka for a while.

John also got involved with NZ Warbirds in the early 1980’s, and was one of the original members of The Roaring Forties Harvard aerobatic team. In the early 1990’s he got the opportunity to fly WWII fighters with the Alpine Fighter Collection, and he later flew with the Old Flying Machine Company.