Dornier 128

The Dornier 128 was a development of the Dornier Do 28 D-2 Skyservant offered from 1980 in two versions: the 128-2 with piston engines and the 128-6 with turboprop engines. The airframe of the Do 28 was kept apart from reinforcements of the structure of the fixed tailwheel undercarriage and of the engine mounts. The turboprop idea came in the late 1970s because of the troublesome piston engines and the poor supply of aviation petrol in the third world, the main intended market. The prototype D-IBUF flew as the Turbo-Sky with Lycoming LTP 101-600 engines from 1978, before the PT6 engines of the production 128-6 were settled on. The first flight of the turboprop version was on 4 March 1980 at Oberpfaffenhofen, type certification by the Federal Aviation Office followed in 1981, and production ended in 1986 with about 30 built, several for African customers. The D-IBUF later served as the Polar I research aircraft of the Alfred Wegener Institute.