The First Commercial Jet to Break the Sound Barrier Was Not the Concorde | Mental Floss

The DC-8 had excellent lines.

I knew that a DC-8 had gone transonic when I was a child................here is some of the skinny on that. The chase pilot was some guy named Yeager.

Sad about it's demise after 20 years with Canadian Pacific Airlines/CP Air, though.
After the test, DC-8 no. N9604Z was delivered to Canadian Pacific Air Lines and was used by the carrier for almost two decades before being retired. But this piece of aviation history isn't hanging in a museum somewhere. After it was put out of service, Canadian Pacific sold DC-8 no. N9604Z for scrap. That's some pretty fast junk.

The First Commercial Jet to Break the Sound Barrier Was Not the Concorde | Mental Floss