Prospective customers for the new-build Deutsche Aircraft D328eco have been very clear about what they want from the aircraft, according to CEO and MD Dave Jackson.
The company has assembled a customer advisory board of around 25 airlines that are potential buyers of the regional turboprop, which is being reborn as a 40-seater and is scheduled to make its first flight in summer 2024.
“They want simplicity,” Jackson said on the sidelines of the Paris Air Show. Given the nature of the operators and the regions where many of them operate, oversophistication is not favored.
Additionally, given that most airlines will need to finance any purchases of the D328eco, they want it to be as sustainable as possible. The aircraft will use the PW127XTS engine, partly because some countries, such as China and India, are thought unlikely to take up the use of SAF as quickly as others.
“That engine will burn anything—100% kerosene, 100% SAF or anything in between,” Jackson said.
Deutsche Aircraft is using Paris to show mockups of the flight deck, with its Garmin G5000 avionic fit-out and the cabin (maximum height 1.86 m), in its 2+1 configuration and a seat pitch of 30in for its recently decided Acro Series 9 seats.
Some US potential operators have inquired about developing a 30-seat version that could operate under Part 135 rules, which have a lower FAA flight-hour training requirement than for Part 121 operations.
The aircraft will be capable of operating out of an 800-m runway and Deutsche Aircraft is carrying out a study for one potential customer that has an even shorter runway, although this would entail a payload penalty. A gravel kit will also be available for operations into unpaved strips.
Deutsche Aircraft has almost completed the selection of its supply chain partners.
“We’ve probably spent as much time selling the program to the supply chain as to any particular customers,” Jackson said. “They’ve got scarce resources and quite a few program opportunities to look at.”
First flight of Test Aircraft 1 is now scheduled for Q2 or, more likely, Q3 of 2024, rather than the end of 2022 as originally planned, mainly because of the focus on the supply chain.
Labor has not been a problem, however. Many large aircraft OEMs laid off staff during the pandemic, Jackson pointed out, “many with lots of years left in the tank” who were snapped up by the Oberpfaffenhofen-based manufacturer.
“We’ve been able to pick up a lot of experienced staff and we’ve got a lot of people coming back who left Dornier in 2000-2001,” when the company ceased producing the Dornier 328-100 and -300 turboprops and jet-powered versions of the original aircraft. “Now they’re coming back to us with 30 years of solid experience under their belts.”
