Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport , also known as the Butler County Airport or K. W. Scholter Field, is a public

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surfa ...

southwest of the central business district of Butler, the county seat of Butler County,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. The airport serves the northern suburbs of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. It is owned by the Butler County Airport Authority.

History

Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport, formerly Butler County Airport, opened as the Pittsburgh-Butler AirportParisi, p. 37Brandberg and Clements, p. 97 on September 27 and 28, 1929, with much fanfare and aircraft demonstrations. The airport originally had three turf runways, one of which was later paved, and a turf runway closed. The remaining turf runway ran N/S. The airport was opened by Pennsylvania Aviation Industrial Corp. (PAIC) owned by George Hann, the Mellon interests and some others, who hoped to lure Pittsburgh traffic. During the Great Depression, the airport shut down for some years when there was little business. The two large hangars were used to store corn. In the 1930s, John Graham along with Kenny Sholter helped to clean out the hangars and reopened the airport. It was then renamed the Butler-Graham Airport.Parisi, p. 37 During its early years, the airport served as an important training area for potential pilots. One notable trainee was Amelia Earhart who received her instrument flight certificate there while practicing for her solo flight over the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

in 1932.Biller, Ed (December 6, 2009). "Airport turns 80" ''

Butler Eagle The ''Butler Eagle'' is a daily newspaper published in Butler, Pennsylvania, United States. It serves the Pittsburgh metropolitan county of Butler. History The conservative family owned paper was founded in 1903 with the merging of the ''Butler ...

''. Retrieved December 28, 2009 It was also at the airport that Earhart had the long-range fuel tanks installed on her

Lockheed Vega The Lockheed Vega is an American five- to seven-seat high-wing monoplane airliner built by the Lockheed Corporation starting in 1927. It became famous for its use by a number of record-breaking pilots who were attracted to the rugged and very l ...

. Another notable aviator was C.G. Taylor, who in 1935 moved his

Taylorcraft Aircraft Taylorcraft Aviation is an airplane manufacturer that has been producing aircraft for more than 70 years in several locations. The company builds small single-engined airplanes. The Taylorcraft design is a conventional layout: high-wing, fab ...

company to Butler. His new planes were tested at the airport and his

Taylorcraft B The Taylorcraft B is an American light, single-engine, high-wing general aviation monoplane, with two seats in side-by-side configuration, that was built by the Taylorcraft Aviation Corporation of Alliance, Ohio.The Pittsburgh PressMove Sta ...

model was introduced here.https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=2VkbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=FE0EAAAAIBAJ&pg=6655%2C1984544 During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Graham Aviation trained so many pilots under the Civilian Pilot Training Program that Piper Cubs had to be stored tilted up on their noses to fit them all in the hangars. For many years, Butler-Graham served as an alternate airport for TWA should the weather be down at

Allegheny County Airport Allegheny County Airport is in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, 7 miles (11 km) southeast of Pittsburgh. It is the fifth-busiest airport in Pennsylvania following Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, and Harrisburg. The airport is owned by t ...

, which from 1931-1952 was the primary airport of the city of Pittsburgh until

Pittsburgh International Airport Pittsburgh International Airport , formerly Greater Pittsburgh International Airport, is a civil–military international airport in Findlay Township and Moon Township, Pennsylvania. Located about 10 miles (15 km) west of downtown Pitts ...

opened. By the late 1990s, the airport was getting too small to handle the number of aircraft coming in so plans were made to extend the runway by . The extension of the single runway was completed in 2004. The airport went through a name change in May 2016, going from the Butler County Airport to the Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport. On October 31, 2020 President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

held a rally at the airport during his second run as President in the 2020 United States presidential election.

Facilities and aircraft

Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport covers an area of and contains one

asphalt Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term ...

paved

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt, concre ...

designated 8/26 which measures . For the 12-month period ending February 27, 2007, the airport had 62,685 aircraft operations, an average of 171 per day: 98%

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...

, 2%

air taxi An air taxi is a small commercial aircraft that makes short flights on demand. In 2001 air taxi operations were promoted in the United States by a NASA and aerospace industry study on the potential Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) ...

and <1% military. There are 132 aircraft based at this airport: 72% single-engine, 23% multi-engine, 3% jet and 2%

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

.
High Flight Academy
a flight training school with recreational and career pilot programs, is located at this airport.

References

Sources

*''An Historical Gazetteer of Butler County, Pennsylvania'', Chicora: Mechling Bookbindery, 2006, . *Brandberg, Robert, and James Clements, ''Lost Butler'', New Wilmington: New Horizons Publishing, 1999, . *Ed Biller
"Airport turns 80,"
''

'', December 6, 2009. *Parisi, Larry D., ''Butler County'', Arcadia Publishing, 2004, .

External links

Butler County Airport Website
{{Pittsburgh Metro Area Airports in Pennsylvania County airports in Pennsylvania Transportation buildings and structures in Butler County, Pennsylvania Butler, Pennsylvania