Community Contributed

Martin (Jack) Butler, Pioneer Aviator of Levin

Kete Horowhenua2020-03-23T17:03:08+00:00
Martin (Jack) Butler built his own plane in Levin and successfully flew it at Waitarere Beach in 1932.
By Joan-Marie O'Dea (nee Butler)

Dad died in 1969 when I was 21. Twelve years later, my mother was very sick. - Go and get your father's box.

The old Nugget box was hidden behind a curtain in the hallway cupboard. The family knew it but never touched it. Dad often brought it out, placing the contents on the kitchen table: newspaper cuttings, grainy sepia photographs and certificates.

I placed it on Mum’s feather eiderdown.

-Promise me that you will have this information published so that people will know what he did.

I agreeing, never comprehending how long it might take, amd she smiled and looked content.

- It's very precious. Go and put it back where it belongs.

My father was Martin ('Jack') Butler, a pioneer aviator. At the age of 22 he built a monoplane and, on four separate occasions in July 1932, took to the skies at Waitarere Beach.

Dad was born in Taihape at the beginning of last century. His father was Martin Butler (the name has come down several generations) and his mother was Charlott Finn, whose father arrived in 1860 and was a member of the 57th Regiment in Taranaki. Dad, the second child, had five sisters. The Butler family moved around bush camps in the King Country, as many New Zealand families did a hundred years ago. His early education was at the Hamilton Technical College. Jack had an inventive mind and he trialled many inventions while on holiday in the Waikato with his family. A family legend is that, as a teenager, he invented a perming solution that turned his sister Molly's hair green.

By the time he was twenty, Dad was apprenticed at Milnes' garage, the Ford franchise in Oxford Street, Levin.

This was the golden age of aviation. In 1927, five years earlier, Charles Lindbergh had flown the `Spirit of Saint Louis' across the Atlantic, John Moncrieff and George Hood were lost trying to fly the Tasman. Bert Hinkler had made an astonishing solo bight from England to Australia and Charles Kingsford-Smith and Charlie Ulm were barnstorming around New Zealand.

A Levin Aero Club, led by Dr Sidney Thompson, was at first attached to the Palmerston North Aero Club; based at Milson. Later they operated from a paddock on Tararua Road owned by Mortimer Ryder, a landing ground that was passed for the job by the famous George Bolt. Martin Butler gained his solo ticket as a member of the club and was trained both at Levin and Milson by Garry Cooper.

There were numerous reports of attempts by New Zealanders taking to the air, sometimes in contraptions that they had built themselves. Dad got the idea for his own plane from a Popular Mechanics magazine.

Mr Laurie Jenson, now eighty five years old, was a great mate of Jeremy Milne, whose father owned the garage. Laurie has lived in Winchester Street, Levin all of his life and clearly remembers each day after school going over to the garage to see my Dad working on his monoplane. It took three years to build and, while under construction, was strapped to the rafters during the day. Somebody recently commented that they wondered how on earth Dad and his apprentice mates managed to get any paid work done for J C Milnes.

Laurie remembers that Dad's eyes popped out in delight when he helped to salvage a wrecked Model A Ford car in the rich lush growth on the side of the Paekakariki hill.

The motor was just what he needed for his `bird'. The car's remains are probably still there today.

The fuselage and wing ribs were made of redwood timber. The wing spare front and rear were of boxed ply. Mr Arthur Tapp helped in the building of the plane and recalls covering the framework and the wings with a fine cloth sewn at a vehicle upholstery shop near Milnes's garage run by Mr Bill Harding.

Shortly after Jack's death an article in the Aviation Historical Journal based on his handwritten notes, gives details of the operation. When construction was finished, the engine was tried out several times at the garage. On 15 July 1932, after a general checkover the plane was loaded on a flatbed truck and driven to Waitarere Beach.

Arthur Tapp said that the Aero Club would not let Jack fly off their field at Tararua Road in case he crashed and tarnished the clubs reputation.

An elderly Levin resident, Mrs Hesp, aimed to keep Jack safe by giving him a St Christopher's medal to place on his dashboard by the controls. Her daughter Aroha remembers that it was a large metal circle almost the size of a dinner plate and nailed well so it wouldn't be dislodged.


The takeoff After the crash Jack Butler and Harding with the damaged cockpit

The Trial

Jack's Nugget box contains a Levin Chronicle report from 15 July 1932 headed `Taking the Air: Successful Trial of Local Plane.'

Although the intention had not been broadcasted, there was a good crowd at Waitarere Beach yesterday when Mr Martin Butler of Levin tried out the monoplane that he has devoted his spare time for the past few years to building. The plane was transported to the beach in sections by motor lorry and assembled there. When this task was complete she presented quite a smart appearance and when the motor was started at 2 p. m., everyone felt confident that success would attend the efforts of the young engineer aviator. Just as he speeded up the engine, however, the gasket blew out and a flood of water through the carburettor brought the engine to a standstill. Although this caused considerable delay it was fortunate that the weakness was manifest before the plane took off. At 4.10 p. m. the machine made a short run along the beach into the face of a stiff southerly breeze and in a short distance lifted nicely into the air. As this was entirely a trial it was not Mr Butler's intention to make for altitude and after a short flight he made a very fine landing and took off again. As the atmosphere was bitterly cold and the hour was late this was deemed sufficient trial for the day. Mr Butler expresses himself entirely satisfied with the way the machine behaved and is looking forward to favourable conditions for the next attempt.

The machine is a monoplane with a wing span of 33 feet. The engine is a Ford model A and develops 40 horse power with 2000 revolutions per minute and the cruising speed is estimated at 75 miles per hour ... At his trials yesterday Mr Butler was assisted by Mr Milnes and members of his staff, Mr W Harding, Major Cowper (Instructor to the Levin Aero Club), Mr F Carpenter and Mr Syd. Butt.

Last flight

The next attempt, on 17 July, ended in disaster.

About three hundred assembled supporters and well wishers turned up, including Martin Butler's father and his trainer, garry Cooper.

He again had difficulty in getting airborne, and wrote that:

My difficulty in getting off the ground proved to be that I was attempting to lift off by using the stick before gaining sufficient forward speed. After numerous failures I held the stick forward and allowed the plane to gather maximum speed and at this stage the plane rose easily and climbed quickly to my estimated 1000 feet.

At this altitude I flew up and down the beach several times.

An anxious mother decided during the afternoon that the beach was not a safe place for her three children, one being a small baby in a pram. In a letter of complaint to the Chronicle she wrote that she was startled whilst out walking by the approach of a plane flying dangerously low on the beach. Simultaneously with its approach a modern sports car took a slight bend further up the road, obviously racing the plane, the passengers in the car waving to the pilot and the driver doing his best to get to the beach (where the crowd were assembled) first. `How dare they (she wrote) put not only my life at risk but that of my beloved children'.

For twenty minutes, Martin Butler twice flew up the beach as far as the Manawatu River, making easy turns, covering a distance of about thirty miles (48 kilometres).

On his second return he circled twice over the crowd. He then noticed that the radiator was boiling furiously and decided to land. His friend, Fred Carpenter, was watching anxiously:

After about fifteen to twenty minutes Jack's machine seemed to have a long vapour trail out behind it - not speed, but steam! - so that I began to hope he would come down before the kite got too hot.

After throttling hard, Butler believed that his plane was coming down for a normal landing but in fact numerous spectators reported that it was dropping vertically. It was too late to take evasive action, so

I pushed the stick forward to glide but instead this caused the plane to dive for the ground. Attempts to come out of the dive were just too late, and the wheels hit the beach. The plane bounced and fell back and the fuselage broke at the cockpit, allowing engine and wing to fall forward. I escaped without injury.

The event was reported in the Freelance with a close-up photo of the 22-year-old aviator kitted out in leather flying gear.

The original propeller was damaged in the crash. It appears to have been a replica of the one used by Scotland, a NZ pioneer aviator of the day.

A second propellor was built, and enjoyed a journey of its own. Whilst it was never used it was finely crafted. Ray Harvey of Levin remembers that, as a youngster of six, he was shown the propeller in a packing case in a corner of his father's factory, (Harvey's Joinery). Made by Harry Bower, the propeller was beautifully Apparently Butler never-uplifted this propeller and the account was never paid. After all the year was 1932. Josiah Harvey (Ray's father) gave it to the Levin School about 1945, where it was displayed in a glass case on the wall opposite the headmaster's office.

In 1958, when I was ten, my father Dad took me to the school to see it, helping me up on a chair for a good look.

However, a special edition of the Levin Chronicle celebrating the Borough's 751' Jubilee reports that after leaving the school this propeller found a place tucked behind the door of the archives room in the old borough council offices. The Levin Historical Society then stored the propeller in its rooms but later entrusted it on temporary loan to the Aviation Museum at Paraparaumu Airport. It may eventually go home to Levin once a permanent resting place is found for this precious article belonging to Levin's first pioneer aviator Martin Butler

Another relic is a small piece of wing, two feet long, and a fine piece of woodwork. Bill Harding was a supporter of Jack Butler who owned a Levin spray painting business. After Jack Butler died, Bill's son Max visited Jack's last place of work, the Colonial Motor Company in Lower Hutt, where one of Jack's former colleagues gave him this piece of wing.

For the past three months I have been working with Mr David Treseder, a retired 747 pilot with a passion for aviation history and a member of the Aviation Museum at Paraparaumu airport. We have hopes of a book on the subject. A film company is interested in the story.

If any reader has relevant information relating to this event, I would be delighted to hear from you please email me atterry.odea@clear.net.nz or telephone 04 298-1654.

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