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.