Airport Turns 80

Rich history remembered; future plans soar

PENN TWP — The Butler County Airport, which celebrated its 80th anniversary in October, has been a home to history both on and off the ground.

Before her record-breaking solo Atlantic crossing in 1932, Amelia Earhart had long-range fuel tanks installed on her Lockheed VE02 there. Then she trained for three months over Butler's skies to receive her instrument flight certificate.

In 1935, C.G. Taylor, one-time partner of William Piper, located his Taylorcraft plant, which manufactured the original two-place, side-by-side aircraft of the same name, in Butler.

"The first blueprint was scratched out on the floor of the hangar in chalk. That's word of mouth though, I wasn't here then," joked airport manager Ivan Longdon.
During World War II, hundreds of American, British and Canadian pilots used the airport for training, bunking in the dormitories at Slippery Rock University and at Grove City College.

"If you fly into little airports, usually they are not that nice, but the Butler County airport stands out as a gem," said Jim Opalka, a member of the Butler County Airport Authority, which is responsible for the airport's upkeep.

Opalka, who keeps his plane at the airport, also is the author of "The Vulgar Vulture," a book describing his father's experiences in World War II.

The elder Opalka was the only survivor of a B-26 Marauder, a medium twin-engine bomber called the "Vulgar Vulture," that was shot down during the last weeks of the war by Germany's newest weapon: a pair of ME-262s, the world's first combat jets.
"I started flying with my father when I was a junior in high school out of (the now defunct) Mackville Airport in Freeport," Opalka said.

Now on his fourth plane, a 180 Piper Cherokee, Opalka said he loves flying in and out of Butler County Airport.

"This airport has a lot of growth, versus what other small airports have seen, and that's attributable to the 800-foot runway extension we put on five years ago," Longdon said.
In 2007, the Pennsylvania Bureau of Aviation recorded 61,000 operations at the airport, a number which swelled to 72,000 in 2008.

"Another reason for that growth is AirQuest Aviation, our fixed base operator. They are just doing such a wonderful job. Whenever you have a good FBO to go to, you are more prone to fly into that airport," Longdon said.

In addition to instruction, AirQuest offers concierge service, travel planners, charter service, aircraft management and maintenance.

The previous FBO closed six years ago.

A short drive from AirQuest's hangars is the airport's most notorious feature, a bear pen built in the early 1900s by Simeon Nixon Jr., whose Nixon Hotel on East Diamond Street, now site of the Morgan Center, operated through the 1970s.

Nixon would haul garbage from the hotel to his Penn Township farm, part of which overlaps and now is owned by the airport, and feed it to the black and cinnamon bears he kept in a man-made den.

"It's quite a piece of stonework. The corners of it look almost like a small castle. The young dandies in Butler would come out on Saturday evenings and wrestle the bears and bet on the matches," Longdon said.

However, one feature the airport still does not have is a control tower. "Butler County is an uncontrolled airport. Pilots are responsible to announce their intentions on a common advisory frequency, or UNICOM, so you know where the other guy is and what he is doing," Opalka said. "Instrument landings, in practice or in bad weather, must be done by contacting the tower at Pittsburgh International Airport."

Butler County Airport, established in 1929 by Pittsburgh Aviation Industries, originally housed the Penn School of Aviation. Butler was chosen over Pittsburgh as a more suitable site for the facility because the soot and smoke filled the air over Pittsburgh.

Kenny Scholter of Scholter Aviation ran what was then called the Butler-Graham Airport. The airport carries the Federal Aviation Administration distinction of K.W. Scholter Field.
Longdon was appointed manager of the airport this year after working there for 13 years as the head of maintenance

"I don't fly, but I have always enjoyed airplanes. They have always been something special to me," Longdon said.

The airport authority, celebrating its 60th anniversary this year along with the airport's 80th, commemorated the event by planning for the future.
The authority teamed with the Department of Homeland Security to host training for firefighters, EMS and police in the airport conference room.

"The training covered conduct of first responders on an airport, teaching them to be vigilant of potential hazards, such as a runway that is still active following an accident," Longdon said.

"Our first responders are very astute at handling accidents on Route 8 which they handle regularly, but not so much at an airport, where incidents are few and far between."
Homeland security has contracted Waukesha County Technical College in Wisconsin to send instructors to hundreds of airports at no cost to the airport or county.

County Commissioner Dale Pinkerton, the county liaison with the airport authority, said of the airport's 80 years in operation: "We have some real diamonds in Butler County, and the airport is one of them."

Despite all of its advances, though, the airport remains a small airstrip operated by three people: Longdon, secretary Eileen Albert and head of maintenance Russ Sarver.
"I have a wonderful secretary, but I'll tell you what: She can drive a truck and a zero-turn mower with the best of them," Longdon said.