A childhood fascination with a massive aircraft has taken 26-year-old Roshane Mendis from Sri Lanka to the cockpit of a Royal New Zealand Air Force training aircraft.
Today, Pilot Officer Mendis is undertaking his Wings Course with No. 14 Squadron, flying the T-6C Texan II as part of Exercise Wise Owl at RNZAF Base Auckland, Whenuapai.
But his aviation journey began when he was just six.
“I remember looking at this massive airplane and thinking – how cool is this?” he recalled.
“That’s how it started – the little seed was planted.”
Mendis moved to Auckland with his mother after she was offered a job in New Zealand. He attended Howick Primary School before moving to St Mark’s Catholic School and Sancta Maria College.
The move exposed him to a very different education system.
“In Sri Lanka, even from a young age you’re told to study, study, study,” he said.
“Howick Primary School was just so peaceful – such a different learning environment and I did really well.”
His mother wanted him to pursue a university degree, but Mendis had other ambitions.
He dreamed of becoming a pilot but knew commercial flight training was expensive and offered no guarantee of employment.
A college Gateway Programme changed that.
Visits to Ardmore Flying Club and the New Zealand Warbirds Association led him to the Walsh Memorial Scout Flying School in Matamata, where he met two retired RNZAF pilots who helped him begin flying.
At 17, he was even trusted to fly a Tomahawk aircraft belonging to someone he had never met.
After school, Mendis completed a four-year engineering degree at the University of Auckland. He later worked for Fisher & Paykel Appliances, designing user interfaces for high-end refrigerators.
Then came the email that changed his life.
In October 2024, he learned he had been accepted into the RNZAF pilot training programme.
Now, just months away from earning his wings, Mendis is already looking towards his next goal: flying the C-130J Hercules.
“I think I’d like to fly the Hercules C-130J because of the operations they do – going to Antarctica, all over the world, how cool is that?”
For Mendis, the dream that began with a six-year-old staring up at an aircraft is finally becoming reality.
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