Former Wanganui Aero Club flying instructor Ivon Warmington was nearing 90 when this 2012 picture was taken. Photo/ file
Former Wanganui Aero Club flying instructor Ivon Warmington was nearing 90 when this 2012 picture was taken. Photo/ file
Whanganui pilot and flying instructor Ivon Warmington will be remembered with a flyover of his funeral service at 1pm on Tuesday.
He died on November 21, aged 95, having earned the respect of everyone around him, Wanganui Aero Club patron Ian Wakeling said. About six small planes are expected tofly over Whanganui's Trinity Methodist Church to honour him.
Mr Warmington had a long and illustrious flying career. After flying 31 World War II missions in a Lancaster bomber for the Royal Air Force he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
After migrating to New Zealand he taught flying for decades, and is remembered for his efforts to save lives by dropping liferafts to people in trouble off the Whanganui coast. Flying NZ still has an annual liferaft dropping competition with the Ivon Warmington Trophy as its prize.
Wallace Ivon Warmington was born in Cornwall, England. He left school at 14, to work in the local post office, then enlisted in the Royal Air Force in 1940.
Because he was tall he was assigned to fly four engine bombers, and he flew many missions. After the war in Europe ended he flew Mosquitoes in the Pathfinder force.
Ivon Warmington remembers the 1941 Battle of Britain. He was 18 at the time.
When the war ended completely he spent four years market gardening, then re-enlisted. He was sent to Singapore and flew in the Royal Air Force transport squadron.
In 1963 Mr Warmington and his wife Dora emigrated to New Zealand and settled in Hawera. After 18 months there they moved to Whanganui, and he became the chief flying instructor at Wanganui Aero Club's commercial pilot school.
He taught for years, and became the club's president, then its patron. He lived first in Kaitoke, then on St John's Hill on his own, after his wife died.
The Warmingtons had three daughters. The youngest, Rosalind Thomsen, still lives in Whanganui.
In his later years Mr Warmington took up painting, and his pictures of Spitfires in battle are still up on the Wanganui Aero Club walls.
