Mr Emeny is a regular Warbirds Over Wanaka International Airshow display pilot and six members of his immediate family, across three generations, are aviators.
He was part of a large group of North Islanders who flew in to Wanaka Airport anyway.
"With the show being cancelled, a lot of friends were coming down because accommodation was still there.
"We thought we would come down and catch up with everybody and should bring some notable aircraft with us, as we really wanted to support the show. They do such as fantastic job setting up the show for us all to play at so we thought we should bring the Trojan, make a bit of noise and create a bit of interest," Mr Emeny said shortly before his first display late on Friday afternoon.
He promised the group would return for the 2024 show "with bells on".
"We had about 16 aircraft we had arranged to come down to this airshow, including the Catalina Flying Boat and the Yak aerobatic team and it goes on and on ... [2024] should be a big show having been six years as a gap, so we really look forward to that."
He started his aviation career in gliders, before moving into the helicopter industry.
His father, Cliff Emeny, was a WW2 Mosquito fighter bomber pilot, older brother Craig owns Air Chathams while nephew Duane is Air Chathams chief executive.
His brother, John, is a pilot while yet another brother, Derek, is an aviation accident assessor.
Mr Emeny’s daughter, Faye, is a newly minted member of the Yak-52 aerobatic display team.
"My whole life has been flying down at low level, mainly below 50ft, spraying etc.
"And then Warbirds, flying this type of aircraft, is a bit of a hobby of ours. We have been involved in that for the last 30 years, working our way through the different types of aircraft, from the
Trojan, Catalina to Mustang and those sort of things."
The Trojan T28 was built by North American Aviation, the same company that manufactured the Harvard trainer and Mustang fighters.
The Trojan was designed to take over from the Harvard trainer when air forces converted to jets.
He said the high-powered Trojan performs similarly to early jets and has the same shaped windscreen and canopy.
"It was, I think, built in 1953 and this particular one has a hook on the back for landing on aircraft carriers, so was used for training pilots to do that."
He first displayed the Trojan T28 at Warbirds Over Wanaka in 2018 and he and Faye had been working up a low-level two-Trojan display for this year
"It is a real shame we haven’t been able to do that, but we will do it next time," Mr Emeny said.
Airshow general manager Ed Taylor said he was thrilled to be offered a ride in the Trojan on Friday afternoon.
It was his first time in that type of aircraft and an incredible experience to be a passenger while Mr Emeny performed a wing-over above Lake Wanaka, he said.
Mr Taylor was delighted many aviation fans had decided to come to Wanaka for Easter anyway, and provide a small taste of what people were missing out on if the show had been able to go ahead.
Plans are now under way for the 2024 show, he said.
The Warbirds Over Wanaka International Airshow was first held in 1988, and traditionally attracts about 55,000 people over three days.
It has been estimated to inject more than $40million into the Southern Lakes regional economy.
The show was cancelled in January, when New Zealand’s Covid situation for events was still unpredictable, international travel was still restricted and event managers were concerned about the risks of cancelling.
Mr Taylor said Wanaka Airport had had an eerie atmosphere on Friday, when usually it would have been full of marquees and pilots would have been rehearsing their displays for the main event on Saturday and Sunday.
