"I love that sound," he said at Warbirds Over Wanaka yesterday, as vintage aircraft performed their displays in overcast, warm and increasingly windy conditions.
"The Griffon engine doesn't sound the same.
It's a bit more tractor-like," he said.
Mr Lockspeiser was at his first Wanaka airshow but had long harboured a desire to attend.
The Farnborough-born pilot is also making a motoring tour of New Zealand on his own.
"My granddaughter would say I was 22, with 60 years' experience. But next week I'll be 23, with 60 years' added experience," he joked.
Mr Lockspeiser was a friend of late airshow pilot Ray Hanna and was thrilled to meet event founder Sir Tim Wallis, whom he had heard about but had never met.
"I still live in the UK but I wish I did live in New Zealand because it is a beautiful country. We in England are really indebted to New Zealand. I have always felt we have not shown the gratitude that is owed," he said.
Mr Lockspeiser never flew in combat.
He wanted to join the RAF, aged 17, but World War 2 was ending and the RAF was not recruiting.
He was 21 when the chance arrived.
"I started aircraft design then the Cold War got colder and the RAF began recruiting again," he said.
"I've done nothing brave at all. But I flew wartime aircraft - the odd Spitfire, the odd Tempest, the odd Mosquito. I took the opportunity to fly anything I could."
Later, he turned to a career as a test pilot with Hawker Aircraft Ltd.
"But, like motorcar racing, I always felt about aircraft the most enjoyable ones to fly had the same thing in common. They had one seat, one engine and you got in through the top."
Mr Lockspeiser is a member of the United States Society of Experimental Test Pilots and has regularly attended symposiums around the world to learn of the latest developments in aircraft design, sometimes years before they become a reality.
Mr Lockspeiser says he has not retired.
He has just changed gear but is still very much involved in design.
He built a crop-sprayer utility aircraft he thought would be of interest to New Zealanders, but unfortunately it was destroyed in a hangar fire in 1987.
He is at present working on a triphibian, designed to operate on water, snow and land.
