Corporate Overview

Our Business:

Butler National Corporation operates in the Aerospace and Services business segments.  The Services segment includes, temporary employee services and management services for Indian gaming enterprises.  Aerospace includes custom aircraft PMA solutions, aircraft and aircraft parts certificatino services, the manufacture of switching equipment for Boeing aircraft, fuel tank protection devices for aircraft, and structural modifications to business and commercial aircraft.

Butler National Corporation was established in 1968 through the merger of an aviation research firm owned by the Butler family and National Connector Corporation. Butler National combined resources of these two companies to develop one of the first commercial Area Navigation System (RNAV) used for airplane navigation.

During the next ten years Butler National successfully developed the commercial RNAV system.  During this same period, Butler National designed, manufactured and marketed two additional aviation related systems. One of these systems was a ground-based Distance Measuring Equipment (DME). The other was an avionics switching unit used in the McDonnell Douglas line of commercial aircraft.

The DME is an electric pulsed system that, when interrogated by an airborne DME, provides distance information. This ground-based equipment is interrogated by airborne devices approximately every fifteen milliseconds and must be capable of handling up to one hundred aircraft simultaneously. Butler National delivered over five hundred DME ground stations before selling the business line in late 1982.

The avionics switching unit is a system that can switch literally hundreds of communication, navigation and flight control functions simultaneously. Every McDonnell Douglas commercial aircraft, commencing with the DC-8, is outfitted with up to four Butler National switching units. Butler National's presence in the aviation industry continued with the expansion into the design, manufacture and installation of aircraft modifications. Such modifications include converting a Cessna Citation or Learjet into a high altitude photography aircraft, air ambulance or cargo aircraft. Each of these modifications requires Federal Aviation Administration supplemental type certification approval. Butler National Corporation presently owns over 250 such FAA approval certificates. In 1978, Butler National commenced the development of the first talking Automatic Dialing Alarm System (ADAS). Since that time this original system has evolved into a family of monitoring and reporting systems capable of communicating by telephone or radio. Information is communicated by these systems using nearly any standard method of electronic data transfer or by high resolution, synthesized speech available in either male or female voice and in any language. Butler National has delivered over six thousand monitoring and control systems, of one type or another, into nearly all industries for most types of reporting situations. Butler National Corporation has demonstrated its dedication to quality design and manufacturing for over thirty years, and today's Butler National employees continue to design and manufacture new systems to meet those high standards.

Recently, Butler National has re-energized its aviation corporate objective by focusing on aviation products.  Butler staffs design and certification engineers, including FAA DERs to provide cost-effective solutions to air transport and business aviation markets.  Butler also provides certification engineering services for assistance with Federal Aviation Administration approvals. 

In 2000, Butler National received FAA STC approval of the Butler National Transient Suppression Device (TSD) for the Boeing 747 Classic airplane.  In January 2003 the FAA approved the Butler National Transient Suppression Device (TSD) for the Boeing 737.  Both devices were found SFAR-88 compliant by the FAA.  The Butler National TSD provides energy limiting protection for wiring entering a fuel tank along the Fuel Quantity Indicating System wiring.  Butler National continues its aviation safety products objective.

To see the latest news about Butler National Corporation's activities, see the Press Releases page.