As a licensed pilot prior to the historical event known as Pearl Harbor, Rod Stair enlisted with the Army Air Corp Enlisted Reserve Corp. He was first a student and later a teacher to many others in the new art of blind flying, later referred to as instrument flying. In 1944 he was ordered to Pennsylvania Central Air Lines for duty as a copilot in their Air Transport Command Division. He learned "flying the line" with a few senior pilots whose license had been endorsed by one of the Wright brothers. Much of that early flying was low level with far more confidence in ground objects than feeble radio signals.
Thirty-six years later through corporate name changes and a major merger his UAL (United Air Lines) retirement closed out some 30,000 hours of accident and/or incident free duty. His concluding command was on the Douglas DC-10 in 1980.
His experience included delivering the first prop jet to enter the U.S. airline system. It was from Bournemouth in the south of England to Washington National Airport via the pine tree route of the north Atlantic. He made twenty more viscount deliveries in 1956 before returning to regular line flying.