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Butts Aerowing-The Only Way To Fly
These photos are from the last test session I was at with Tim Butts. There are a number of people that are trying to track him down and I hope he does come aboard here at BRF. I miss not hanging out with him. He is a great friend.
I feel very fortunate to have been around Tim from the time he first got the alky drivers' attention with his innovative designs. I've got so many photos of Tim, I decided to scan them into his own personal file on my computer.
Tim Butts Aerowing Hydros! Wow!
That is a Butts Aerowing Outrigger type hydro??? Wooooooo! I always wanted to see one of those, they are spoken of as being legendary! I still have one of his Aerowing Super C Stock hydros from the late 1970s to go with the Crescent Super C engine I have managed to piece together plus a Circa 1988 hydro that ran Formula E Modified. Maybe this is a nice start to honoring builder Tim Butts by putting out some more pictures to catalogue his designs constructed. This is very impressive. :)
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More Butts Aerowings - Different Vintages In Manitoba And In Alberta
Here is an assortment of Butts Aerowings from the late 1970s in Calgary, Alberta where I got my first one tried a Merc 55H was tried on it (talk of under powered) to the local ones around this area of a similar vintage design to the circa 1988 version. They had their following.
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Another Aerowing Circa Version 1988
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First Time Running A Merc D-mod-44 On A Super C Butts Aerowing Circa 1980
I was so happy with the ride in the Aerowing (circa 1980) and it was so hazy and hot out there, I just jumped outa the raceboat to get real cool real quick afterward. That was the first time I ever ran an early Mercury 44 cube Modified on her with a 4 pipe Quincy Stack set. Would you believe the local bylaw patrol enforcement was in action given me the gears not 15 minutes after having a run. Those weekend sailors at the yacht club across the river were not exactly amused with the noise! LOL! :)
That engine was a bit of a bigger test for me than you can imagine in more ways than
The thing about that early Merc Gas Modified 44 cuber with the 4 pipes on the Super C Butts Aerowing was that it the engine in that picture was the first time it was run again (the Merc 44) since 1971 when I took her for a horrendous multi flip end over end cartwheel(s) session on of all things, A Swift Big D Hydro. It was mothballed that long! Because the Swift was totally shattered and when I repaired it, there was no way I was prepared to do that all over again even though I had run an Anzani A and continued to run C and D Stock hydros and Runabouts at that point in time, there is something that scared the beheeejezus outa me about that engine on any boat beginning with that Swift Big D. Obviously the Butts Aerowing Super C had no problem, that is why I was smiling and not bleedding all over myself from small plywood cuts like I did back in 1971! :)
What a Creation - Wind Walker Butts Aerowing
You really have to ask yourself what Tim was dreaming about in full color and stereo sound when he was dreaming while sleeping? Ahead of his time seems to fit that with him to a T, T for Tim! I had only heard strange roumors of that one and it never dawned on me that the Master team's raceboat logo on here was that very raceboat! Just how many "different" designs did Tim produce in all those years? I also heard that he had quite some influence on Schumaker hydros and some others on top of that, that were his understudies something like violin maker Stradevarius?? I hear that making hydros these days is still no easy business to satisfy anyone all the time, what is Tim Butts doing these days? Hoping its now teaching the unwashed like some of us?? Fantastic raceboats from a truly fantastic raceboat builder (and mine are staying put here too under lock and key!) :)
I know that "feeling" makes you shiver after your white collar hours were over!
That raceboat is the stuff of rumor and legend around these parts and really only known to Butts Aerowing owners as rumor and legend. There are those that said such a raceboat could not exist outside of the lil 1/25 scale stuff because it would take too much power to lift her. I always took the notion that it was developed, if it ever existed at all, to be kept down because all that horsepower that was available. I have seen 4 point hydros before, there was even one built here to run a 20H on but not a pickelfork way back in the early seventies by the notorius local runabout builders, Bruce and Les Barton. A Merc 20H just did not have the power to lift that crazy thing and back then it had a conventional front on it, pickelforks were only in the inventives hazy dreams at that point so they abandoned the project. The one thing they liked about a 4 point is just how well it went around corners but that was all,otherwise it was glued to the water. Tim Butts clearly took the concept all the way to the stars. This site brought what was a rumor into a reality for me. I have already emailed other Aerowing owners on the Wind Walker this evening! Who says you need an F1 or CanAm Group 7 car in your garage! Just open the door on that Wind Walker! You just went to pickelfork heaven! LOL! Has this been a weekend for revelations!! Mnay thanks to you and to the maste builder Tim Butts! :)
My 1987 or 1988 Butts Aerowing Has a Mystery To It To I Want To Get To The Bottom Of?
Back in the 1990s, I was offered and bought a Butts Aerowing already posted small here that evidentally was a real smoker at the 1988 APBA Modified Outbaord Nationals in FE running some Formula E version of a Merc 44 Modified. Evidentally after that even that raceboat disappeared until I was offered it and brought it home, it had no front cowl and was basically primered and left that way.
This is the stuff of legend! That hydro has a left single step sponson but the right is 2 step! The hydro has a tunnel right to the shortened transom and very short after planes. I saw it in a 1988 movie of that APBA Nationals but there was no display of the cornering problems I have had with it? I suffered extreme high speed blow outs with it at speeds most Merc 44 D/FE powered raceboats could not get to, that causes the rear of the boat to lift and swing alternating sideways from left to right and back again to the point where at speeds others could not do it was ready to roll. Scared?, you bet I was/am as it would develop speeds no one else could get to but get it to turn around a corner, not a chance! An oval tracker is not much good if it can't do both, that is go down those straights and then corner, SO?? Why in the movie could it do both and win?
I would sure like to get this figured out but it requires Tim Butts as well as that owner/driver of that era that got it going so successfully in 1988 to fill in those technical gaps. To this date she has that crazy high speed but that is no longer out of control, but, to turn her is still the big problem so what am I missing that is sure not the case in the movie? The only change I made was to run a custom made Kamic eared 4 blade prop instead of a 3 blade cleaver to stabilize straightway performance. It has inproved around the corners but is still wild and wants to hook??? and then? Why did the boat disappear off the face of the earth the way it did, until I came along and so far no one has come up with anything other than more mystery and more questions?
Can this be for real? About that Aerowing hydro I have here? Can anyone fill in the technical questions I would like to see answered. I am at a loss. :)
Two Blade Props Are Long Gone Items - But That Gives Me An Idea!
What you said just gave an me your idea some fresh thought in me. Two blade props are pretty much long gone around here with nothing but 3s and 4s being the norm BUT many 4 blades here were made from identical matched 2 blade ears, so back to to some trying, never tried. Its seems so strange that a Butts Super C hydro sporting a Merc 44 could corner and straightway that they do and then run into this later model spooky hydro that did not want to do either when you load the horsepower on her intended for her to use in the first place. In the small picture we had to make up raceboats at a meet for D-Stock class, so we had a 135lb driver running a Merc 55H that performed like the motor, no problems, but jam a D or FE Merc 44 on her and it brought out the worst in her. Maybe it is all prop and the setup to go with it? Thanks for the advice. :)
YOU CAN STILL SEE SIMILAR TRAITS IN YOUR HULL, THE WINDWALKER AND MY SUPER C & FE
That is one very startling looking hydro! :)
When you compare hull pictures you can see similarities all over the place that tells you its a Tim Butts hydro between the various years of variants and even depending what the hull was used for. Did Tim ever have a trademark logo for his hydros as such? Do you have any idea just how many raceboats did he produce over his span as a builder?
I can just see Tim crawling forward and popping the pin on his chute accidentally
What an awful feeling that must have been! Boat is going / riding ever higher so you creep forward to compensate a bit and with a wooosh/bang, your chute deploys because the pin was pulled and your floating on your turkey a couple hundred feet behind the boat, that in this case went over. Oh my gawd! The G-Force from a deployment like that must have felt some one trying to rip your spine out with your lungs attached! Amazing. :)