tdracer said " The story that was floating around Boeing at the time was that there was a belief that you could get a little better cruise speed and fuel burn if you extended the flaps a bit (flaps 1?) - but to do it you had to pull circuit breakers to keep the leading edge slats from also going out."
A VERY well placed WELL known good friend of mine ( deceased in 2004 ) who was a Boeing Engineer -ex Multi engine Military pilot- Boeing KC 135 delivery pilot- and a training pilot - at various times in his long career - and had been involved in training a Canadian chief pilot for Wardair on 727 ( whom I happened to meet .. long story ) when Wardair bought a 727 for a route from Vancouver to Ireland as I recall with a 727 !!- told me ( years later ) about the flap- circuit breaker method on 727 . So at least that part seems to be true.
And as to the 727 LE slat and dive story - dont know- but I do know of a jammed slat issue ( which required a change in first 3 or 4 767 slat linkages ) due to a one side jamming issue on first or second flight of 767- which resulted in a very hot landing at Paine . Spent a few interesting tooling hours on that
