Interview conducted on January 30, 1997. 2 audio cassettes The interview describes Captain Ross A. Butler’s experiences during his career with Pan American World Airways as a Third Officer, a Copilot (First Officer) and Pilot (Captain). He discusses his flight training in the Civilian Pilot Training (CPT) program and his initial and ongoing ground school and instrument training with Pan American. He describes the airplanes he flew, including a Taylorcraft (probably a De Lux 65); the Waco UPF-7; the Martin PBM; the Consolidated PB2Y 3; the Boeing 314, 377, 707, and 747; the Douglas DC 4 and DC 7C; and the Lockheed Constellation. He discusses the routes he flew, including the 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. Captain Butler describes some of his pioneering flights, including the route over the North Pole via Frobisher Bay in a DC 7C; the first nonstop flight from Hong Kong to Los Angeles; the first commercial flight from New York to Tokyo via Fairbanks; and the first commercially scheduled route from Hong Kong to New Delhi (the “Hump” Route). He describes flying into Vietnam during the war as well as flying in and out of West Berlin in the 1940s. He discusses the effect of his flight schedule on his family life and relates anecdotes about some of his Pan American coworkers. He discusses the specifics of flying in the Jetstream, as well as the effects of the seniority system on career advancement. He describes his role in opening the Butler-Howe flight school in San Carlos, CA after his retirement.