Arthur Butler Memorial Fly-in 2008 Tooraweenah NSW

Arthur Butler in front of the “Warrumbungle” DC3.

Cecil Arthur Butler was born in Birmingham, England in 1902 and migrated to Australia in 1910, where he apprenticed as a tool, jig and gauge maker at the Lithgow small arms factory from 1917-1921, after which he  transferred to the Australian Aircraft & Engineering Co. Ltd at Mascot, Sydney.

He became interested in flying in 1920 and by 1923 he had obtained his ground engineers licence through night school at the Sydney Technical College. He flew as an engineer on the 1924 inaugural flight of the first interstate mail service from Adelaide to Sydney, joining the flight in Hay.

Butler obtained his pilot’s licence in 1927 and made a living “barnstorming” in the eastern states of Australia. He was keen to construct his own aircraft, and by 1930 he had designed built and tested a small, all-metal, high-winged aeroplane BAT1.

Comper Swift 1931

On the 9th November 1931 he broke, and still holds, the record for piloting the smallest aircraft to fly from England to Australia. He completed the flight in nine days, one and three quarter hours in a Comper Swift.
After the Darwin stop of his record flight, he refuelled his plane in Tooraweenah. On March 30th, 1932 he married Tooraweenah girl Doris Garling at St Ambrose's Anglican Church, Gilgandra.

By 1934 Butler had established his own aircraft business and successfully tendered for the Charleville, Queensland, to Cootamundra, New South Wales, leg of the Imperial Mail Service (England to Australia airmail route). When this contract expired in 1938 Butler Air Transport continued on as a civil airline servicing NSW and Queensland.

During WWII he maintained some routes and, in addition, made aircraft parts for the government. Butler refused to profit from this war-effort activity, and he charged only to recover his costs.

Post War, Butler Air Transport Pty Ltd was registered as a public company and was to become the largest and most successful airline operating in NSW, using in turn three Douglas DC-3s, Avro Ansons, D.H. 114 Herons and three Airspeed Ambassadors.

In a bitter shareholding battle in 1958, Ansett Airlines successfully bought out Butler Air Transport Pty Ltd; a move which led to Butler’s eventual exit from the airline industry. Instead of quietly retiring, he instead set about raising funds for an air-ambulance service on behalf of the NSW Ambulance Transport Service Board which he also chaired.

Butler was awarded an O.B.E. in 1958.

Despite a stroke in 1968, he taught himself to type and published a history of early aviation in Australia titled “Flying Start” in 1971. He then began painting - mainly aircraft. He died in 1980 aged 78.

Arthur Butler’s dream was “to bring modern aviation services to the people of the outback townships and stations” and he did this most successfully for more than 20 years.