Fly By Wire Queenstown Ltd director Neil Harrap, of Queenstown and Wellington, said he was keen to see the ride he spent almost $4 million on reopened.
The ride is located on Arnold Middleton's Queenstown Hill Station, near Tuckers Beach on the Shotover River, and cost $1.5 million to build.
Mr Harrap started Fly By Wire in 1998 and ran it until 2006.
He leased it to a local operator, who abandoned the ride in 2008.
"I am retired and have no desire to restart the ride personally.
"However, the interest shown by extreme activity enthusiasts around the world indicates that the ride, if reopened, would be successful and add another dimension to the range of Queenstown extreme activities," he said.
"Our customers say that Fly By Wire is the most exciting ride they've ever experienced and I feel that I should try to inspire an Otago entrepreneur into reopening the ride," he said.
He continued to get email inquiries from around the world as the ride had featured in more than 90 television programmes worldwide.
The equipment and buildings were still on the site and landowner Mr Middleton and his son Kelvin were supportive of it reopening.
Mr Harrap said he and a previous operator would provide the new operator with training.
He spent $90,000 on a new winch system after a Swedish woman received severe arm and facial injuries when the miniature Fly By Wire plane she was in crashed in November 2001, he said.
Fly By Wire pleaded guilty to five charges and was ordered to pay $20,000 in the Wellington District Court in June 2004.
Heaslip Engineering Ltd of Invercargill created and installed the new winch system and operations resumed in March 2002.
"We got the right people to design and build a new winch system which is fail-safe.
"If any electrical, mechanical or hydraulic mechanism fails, the brakes come on and the plane remains suspended," he said.
The ride had been certified as safe by the Department of Labour Occupational Health and Safety, he said.
The Fly By Wire ride involves a 4m-long rocket suspended by a 9.5mm cable from a 105m-high bridge.
It is powered by a 60hp aircraft engine and the patron is harnessed into the plane.
The "pilot" controls the speed and direction of the flight, which reaches speeds of 155kmh and heights of more than 100m above the canyon floor.
