Sir Tim Wallis, of Wānaka, died on Tuesday evening last week, following a short illness.
He was 85.
His funeral will be held in the Alpine Helicopters hangar at Wanaka Airport at noon on Saturday.
Invermay Agricultural Centre deer research co-founder Ken Drew, of Dunedin, said Sir Tim was "truly a fantastic person and deserves all the accolades they give him".
When Southern Rural Life called Dr Drew last week, he was writing a letter to Sir Tim’s wife, Prue, Lady Wallis.
"I knew Tim well."
An enduring memory of Sir Tim was when the Invermay deer research project got a permit to capture a dozen Wapati from Fiordland in 1978.
"I wanted to have a look at Wapiti-type animals because there were people arguing they were different species of animal from red deer and wouldn’t interbreed and I didn’t think that was the case."
Sir Tim was a "fabulous guy to work with".
"Tim was a wonderful guy. He was such a personable guy."
Deer were once considered a noxious pest and Sir Tim had helped transform the pest into a high value product by capturing live animals for farming, he said.
Former Invermay research scientist and deer farmer Tony Pearse, of Dunedin, said Sir Tim "always did things with panache and scale".
He recalled Sir Tim’s son, Toby, calling him on the morning of a celebration of 50 years of deer science at the Invermay Agricultural Centre in Mosgiel last year.
"Toby rang me and said ‘According to mum, Tim has woken up with that glint in his eye and wants to go to Invermay — can you have a look around for somewhere for a helicopter to land’."
Sir Tim arrived in a helicopter, which "blew all the cherry blossom off the trees."
He was "sharp as a tack" at the celebration.
"It was real thrill."
Some of that herd was gifted to Invermay from the Canadian government.
Mr Pearse was working as a technician in the deer research project from 1983.
"Some of those early Wapiti had some pretty gnarly temperament problems."
Parallel importing between the countries began when Sir Tim flew 1000 red deer for farming in the United States and Canada.
Mr Pearse worked for Sir Tim for a year in North America in the late 1980s.
That time was the most interesting in his deer farming career, Mr Pearse said.
In the job, Sir Tim would fly him to farms across North America.
"You never knew what you would being doing each day. Tim was exciting to be around, but he was very practical and he was always thinking."
An enduring memory was Sir Tim inventing a trap to capture live deer, which was a giant net, which closed automatically when a large animal entered it.
"That was the magic of Tim."
The trap was proven to work at Invermay and was exported to many countries, including Canada, Japan and Thailand.
Other countries to use the trapping technology were the United Arab Emirates, to capture oryx, and Hawaii, to catch chital deer.
"It was an interesting time."
Sir Tim was the first president of the Elk and Wapiti Society of New Zealand.
He was knighted in 1994 — after initially declining — for his services to the deer industry and the founding of the Warbirds over Wanaka Airshow.
Two of Sir Tim’s four sons, Matt and Nick, died in helicopter crashes.
He is survived by Lady Wallis and sons Jonathan and Toby.
