Interview conducted by Carol L. Osbourne on January 30, 1998.
Final transcript
The interview describes Captain Ross A. Butler’s experiences during his career with Pan American World Airways as a third officer, co-pilot, and pilot; flight training in the Civilian Pilot Training (CPT) program; ground school and instrument training with Pan American; describes the airplanes he flew: Taylorcraft (probably a De Lux 65), Waco UPF-7, Martin PBM, Consolidated PB2Y-3, Boeing 314, 377, 707, and 747, Douglas DC-4 and DC-7C, and the Lockheed Constellation; routes he flew: Pacific Division routes from San Francisco to Honolulu, Palmyra, Canton Island, Funafuti, New Hebrides (Espiritu Santo), Midway, Wake Island, Guam, Brisbane, Sydney, Auckland, Manila, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Saigon, Da Nang, Bangkok, London, Paris, and the around-the-world route; Seattle to Anchorage, Fairbanks; and his base in Berlin; pioneering flights over the North Pole via Frobisher Bay in a DC-7C, first nonstop flight from Hong Kong to Los Angeles, first commercial flight from New York to Tokyo via Fairbanks, the first commercially scheduled route from Hong Kong to New Delhi (the “Hump” Route); flying into Vietnam during the war, in and out of West Berlin in the 1940s; effect of his flight schedule on family life; specifics of flying in the Jetstream; seniority system; role in opening the Butler-Howe flight school in San Carlos, CA after retirement.
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