Originally Posted by
Dave Therhino
I'm speculating, but I think it's simply risk reduction - one less thing to worry about going wrong on the first flight. The landing gear obviously is fully ready for the flight, but they are typically verifying lower speed characteristics on the first flight, so leaving the gear down doesn't limit them much. You can bet if an engine failure occurred on takeoff they would have raised the gear.
But five hours with the gear down ?????????????