Early in August, the Harry J. Butler and Kauper Aviation Co. Ltd. was formed, and operated from a hanger at Northfield. This Northfield air strip was used by the Aviation Company from July 1919 to October 1920. An aerodrome at Albert Park (purchased by Butler himself) was used from October 1920, until the closing of the Company on September 24th, 1921.

The airfield was subsequently purchased by the Commonwealth Government and used for a time as the Adelaide Airport until the Parafield Aerodrome was completed and put into use.

The original stakeholders in the Company were Butler, Kauper, Mrs Kauper, H.C Richards and Sergeant Major S.C Crawford. The business of the new Company as set out in its Articles was to be “Manufactures and Importers of Aircraft, Motor Cars and Merchandise, with subsidiary interests as Motor and General Engineers and in Aerial and Passenger Carrying and Advertising Services.” The very novelty of the enterprise caused it to flourish in its early stages, and there was a strong demand for passenger flights and stunting exhibitions.

Butler came home to Australia about the 5th July, 1919, and a few weeks later his Bristol M.1C Monoplane (Red Devil), his Avro 504K Biplane and three 110 h.p. Le Rhone rotary engines which could be fitted to either plane arrived in the country under the care of Lt. H.A Kauper, R.F.C., Sergeant-Major Samuel Cecil Crawford and Leslie Jack Lucas.

Kauper, who was now associated with Butler, originally came from Melbourne. He was another aviation fanatic, and went to England in 1909 where he became a first-class aeronautical engineer and designer. Together with Harry Hawker (also destined to become famous) he won a Daily Mail prize for the first flight around Great Britain.

Kauper invented the gear which made it possible for British fighter pilots to fire through the revolving propellers of their planes – without hitting the propellers.

He was a brilliant engineer and Butler was fortunate to have his services during the brief life of their aviation company.

Later, Kauper was a co-worker in the invention of the radio transceivers that are used in the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Jack Lucas was for a long time in the employ of Butler and Kauper as a mechanic and general utility man – he went with Butler on most of his mail-carrying trips.

Crawford was a lifelong friend who was himself interested in aviation from its earliest days, and was always on hand to give Harry encouragement and advice in peace and war. His name constantly recurs in connection with Butler’s activities from childhood until his early death, and his opinion was always greatly respected and usually acted upon.

By July 31st, 1919, just three weeks after his return from overseas, and eight days after the arrival of his planes, Harry Butler was giving exhibitions and displays of flying and stunting.

Butler could never stop flying now, and his one aim was to get home, and to bring civil aviation with him.

History shows that he was perhaps a little before his time, but single-mindedness and determination roused latent enthusiasm in many South Australians and throughout the country he encouraged and inspired men to cling to their belief in the future of flying.

The rapid progress and enormous interest in aviation in this State owes much to the personality and genius of Harry Butler. He was a man of medium, rather stocky build, with a round, genial face that smiled easily and made you feel good just to look at him. All manner of people liked him, and were warmed by his zest for living and his enthusiasm for flying.

Rather slow and diffident on official occasions, he was another being when he got to the controls of a plane.

Aerobatics were his forte and the ultimate measure of his enormous skill. He himself was concerned with the serious business of flying, but he knew how far behind him in knowledge and appraisal lagged the average man in the street, and so for that man, Harry risked his life a thousand times as he dived, roller, flipped and hedgehopped in spectacular manoeuvres designed to capture the most stolid imagination, and make the most unresponsive man aware of aviation and its possibilities.

Butler would fly to France, attach himself to an active Fighter Squadron and join its raids, so that he could study each new German tactic at first hand, work out an effective counter to it and then go back to his school and give further instruction in the light of the information he had gained in battle.

His stay in France would sometimes extend over a period of eight weeks.

In February 1918, he received a head wound on active service over Douai, and in December of the same year he was awarded the Air Force Cross.

During his service in Great Britain, Butler discovered the advantages of a primitive form of air mail. He dropped weighted notes from his plane when time did not allow a message being sent through normal channels. As we shall see, this habit had a warming sequel on his return to South Australia.

Captain Harry Butler remained in the R.F.C until the war ended on Armistice Day, 1918.

He spent all his savings and then borrowed more to go to England at his own expense and join the Royal Flying Corps.

He enlisted in England early in 1916 as an Air Mechanic, but his brilliance received immediate recognition, and after three weeks he was gazetted Second Lieutenant, and by July 1916, Harry Butler was flying in France.

His second greatest talent proved to be as an instructor. Flying daily, and teaching others the thrill and achievement that man could find in the air, this must have been a very happy period in his life. Living with airminded men, he shared with them his knowledge and uncanny instinct for aviation. Other men could be taught to fly, but Harry Butler was always an airman born.

He was soon made Captain and Flight Commander, and during his service as an instructor 2,700 pupils passed through the school to which he was attached. This in itself was a magnificent contribution to the Allied war effort, but Harry Butler adopted a typical instructor’s routine of his own that added further merit to his service.

When Butler reached his early twenties, it was important that he have a reliable motor bike, because most Saturdays he rode almost 200km to Smithfield, where Mr. C.W. Wittber was building a plane for which he had made every component part himself, including the engine. This was probably Harry’s first contact with an aircraft – certainly it was his first chance to climb into one and get the heady feel of the controls.

Wittber could recognise and acknowledge the promise in this young fellow enthusiast, and together they learned the clumsy rudiments of flying. Their activity was largely confined to taxiing around the ground, but both made a few short flights into the air.

His life followed a steady pattern of farm work by day and avid reading and study of his beloved aircraft by night until February 1915, when Harry Butler could endure the delay no longer and went to Point Cook to join the Air Force.

Despite a very high rating in his preliminary examinations, he did not stay long. The tempo of the war and of flying was quickening now, and he chafed at delays.

Harry Butler was born to fly, and no obstacles of time or distance were great enough to deter him. Throughout his brief life, the theory and practice of aviation was his ruling passion.

As a boy he caught and weighed his mother’s farm hens, measured their wing span and then released them. Always seeking to learn, always obsessed with the desire to fly.

His limited schooling was received at Koolywurtie where he shared the single teacher on duty with about twenty other children of varying ages. Harry’s devotion to constructing model machines often surpassed his attention to homework, much to his teacher’s dismay. He had no secondary education.

As a very young man his mechanical talent found its outlet on motor bikes, and after disappointment with one second-hand machine, he built his own around an engine imported from England.