ONE WOULD EXPECT AN AIRPLANE SLATED FOR A RECORD FLIGHT ATTEMPT TO BE PREPPED AND FLAWLESS DOWN TO THE LAST RIVET, BUT BEFORE IT EVEN LEFT THE DOUGLAS AIRCRAFT PLANT IN CALIFORNIA THE DC-8 CHOSEN FOR THIS PARTICULAR ATTEMPT WAS NO LONGER FACTORY-FRESH.
In an interview with aviation historian Bill Wasserzieher for a Douglas employee oral history project, flight test engineer Richard H. Edwards recalled, “The night before, at Long Beach, somebody had dinged the [wing leading-edge] slats and they didn’t work.” And during the preflight check Edwards damaged the trailing-edge flaps, banging one on a flight crew workstand inadvertently left under it.
Without slats and flaps, low-speed handling was going to be tricky. Luckily, this crew wasn’t aiming for a low-speed record. Pilot William Magruder told them, “Well, we can take off with no flaps and the airplane will be all right…if we don’t
