The first Douglas DC-8
While discussing DC-8 history, Ken reminded me that the first DC-8 ever built had been briefly leased to Canadian Pacific Airlines for one year in the 1960s. We touched on this in an article for NetLetter #1456 on March 1, 2021.
MSN 45252 Line # 1 was originally registered N8008D and made its maiden flight on May 30, 1958 at Long Beach, California.
It was leased to National Airlines in June 1961, then sold to Trans International Airlines in June 1962 who sub-leased it to Lufthansa in May 1965.
It was subleased to Canadian Pacific in October 1966, registered as CF-CPN, fin # 600 and christened 'Empress of Santiago'.
It was sold to Delta Air Lines in October 1967 where it returned to its original registration (N8008D) and assigned fin #800. It served Delta until acquired by Aeroméxico in April 1979 and re-registered as XA-DOE and named 'Quintana Roo'. Its career ended when withdrawn from service and stored at Marana Pinal Airpark (MZJ) in January 1982.
Interesting that it was stored for almost 20 years before being broken up in 2001. It is a shame that it had not been bought and preserved by a museum.
Editor's Trivia Note by Ken Pickford:
"There's one visible feature of that aircraft that is non-standard and was inherited from the prototype when it was re-engined with JT3D turbofans. It retained the original engine pylons used on the series -10/20/30/40 series.
Those pylons had a flat bottom due to the thrust reverser design that slid back and forth on rails along the bottom of the pylon when deployed and contained the thrust reverser and also served as a noise suppressor.
The JT3D engines on the -50 and -61 models had different reversers that ejected from vanes on the sides of the engines and didn't need the flat bottomed-pylons. The -62/-63 series had a new more streamlined engine nacelle design (and various wing changes) with clamshell-type reversers at the rear of the engine again."
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