General News
4 April, 2025
Butler Air Transport, a Tooraweenah icon
Gilgandra sits between a former leading aviation centre and a current flying stronghold.
These days Dubbo is known as a regional airport hub, with Dubbo Regional Airport a thriving service for people in central-west and north-western NSW.
But in earlier times, Tooraweenah was the key flight centre in central NSW.
That standing for Tooraweenah came from the late Cecil ‘Arthur’ Butler, who set the solo record flying time from England to Australia in 1931, a mark that still stands.
Arthur Butler made the quick dash to ensure he didn’t miss his chance to marry the late Doris Butler, nee Garling.
It was a wise decision which boosted both Arthur’s future business ventures and Tooraweenah’s profile. The Garling family helped Arthur Butler tender for the Queensland to NSW section first-ever air mail contract on the British Royal Empire Mail Service.
The airline started in Cootamundra in 1934, and in 1937 Arthur Butler purchased ‘Wattle View’, Tooraweenah which was previously owned by the Yeo family so Arthur could build an aerodrome.
That aerodrome is the aerodrome as it is today. With assistance from the Estens family, the Tooraweenah airport was then constructed.
Post World War II, Butler Air Transport Pty Ltd was registered as a public company and started chartering flights to and from Tooraweenah.
Tooraweenah then became a key rural airport service hub, servicing more than 300 passengers per week.
It would have connecting flights across south-western Queensland and western NSW as the first passenger airline to service those areas.
One route was from Charleville, to Tooraweenah, to Sydney. You could also from Sydney, to Tooraweenah, to Charleville and then a connecting flight to Brisbane.
Butler Air Transport flew nine services to 16 country centres, with towns like Brewarrina, Coonamble, Nyngan and Walgett regular routes.
The flight services were a key part of rural life until the 1950s when the Australian government sought to nationalise commercial aviation, adopting a two-airline policy.
Arthur Butler fought the changes, but in 1958 Ansett took over Australian National Airways and absorbed Butler Air Transport in 1958, Mark said, describing it as a “controversial takedown”.
When the airline got taken over, Ansett swiftly closed Tooraweenah services and a key piece of rural history suddenly ended.
Mark Pitts, Arthur Butler’s grandson and vice-president of the Arthur Butler Aviation Museum, first moved out to Tooraweenah around eight years ago and bought the original airport house back into the family.
He said when he first arrived, it was clear the airport was neglected. But with the help of a dedicated committee, the “passion for Tooraweenah as one of Australia’s most important aviation towns historically” has been restored.
The culmination of this work will be this weekend when the Arthur Butler Aviation Museum hosts a 2025 airshow that will attract thousands to the Tooraweenah village.
The event at Tooraweenah Airport will feature displays from some of the best aircraft in Australia thanks to the Paul Bennet Airshows team.
Based in the Hunter Valley, the Paul Bennet Airshow team will offer a unique airshow display featuring Wolf Pitts Pro and Sky Ace aircraft to name two, along with many more.
There will be a wide variety of planes coming to Tooraweenah from the Paul Bennet Airshows.
The Wolf Pitts Pro, a WWII P40 Kitty Hawk, P51 Warbird Mustang, Edge 540, Yak 52 (two), T28 Trojan and Beechcraft Beech B18. Aircraft on display (displayed static on ground) will include the PL12 Airtruk, Nord 3202, CH-82 Tiger Moth, and Nanchanj CJ-6.
“We’ve had a couple of events to get the ball rolling,” Mark said. “But now we’ve got to the stage where we are running a major airshow.”
The Tooraweenah Endurance Club has volunteered to handle parking. “We’ve had so much community support,” Mark said.
“(GK and LR) Rohr’s have provided materials for fencing and Phil Estens whose grandfather was the man who had the team to build the aerodrome, has done the fencing for the event.
“It’s been a combined community effort to make sure this event is going to be spectacular.”
“It will be an amazing family event. The kids will be blown away by the spectacle.”
Arthur Butler and Doris Butler (nee Garling) pair met at a barnstorm. Barnstorming was a form of aviation entertainment in which stunt pilots performed tricks individually or in groups.
“Him and (Charles) Kingsford Smith a couple of others … would go from town to town flying in along main streets, shooting their planes around the place,” Mark explained.
“And then they would land in a paddock and take people up for joyrides. That’s how they would make money. He took my grandmother up for a flight, met her and fell in love with her.”
The story took another twist in 1931 when Arthur discovered he may lose Doris if he couldn’t get to Australia fast.
He spotted a plane landing in the distance, so the story goes, and chased it down. Arthur met the pilot, Nicholas Comper, who was trialling a new style of aircraft, now known as a Comper Swift. The pair struck up a friendship and Mr Butler then flew the Comper Swift solo from England to Australia in nine days, one hour and 42 minutes, setting the England-Australia solo flight record.
“After that, he flew to Tooraweenah, proposed to my grandmother Doris (the late Doris Butler nee Garling) and the rest is history,” Mark told The Gilgandra Weekly.
