From Dave Jackson’s desk - March 2022

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March 2022

I am pleased to once again present you with some exciting updates about Deutsche Aircraft’s work and progress for the past few months.

Last December, we celebrated Deutsche Aircraft’s 1st year anniversary and the 30 years of D328 first flight online, and also attended and presented at the Hamburg Aviation Forum.

We are also happy to announce that we completed our first Customer Advisory Board, with a number of key airlines from around the world, and successfully gathered valuable feedback for the D328eco development.

Sustainability is always at the heart of the entire Deutsche Aircraft operation. We not only focus on developing an environmentally friendly aircraft, but we also dedicate the entire organization towards comprehensive sustainability goals. We are pleased to announce that Deutsche Aircraft obtained 3 EN ISO certificates, and also established a Sustainability Board, to facilitate implementation across all departments.

We continue to work with important partners in development, most recently we highlighted our collaboration with the North Energy Cluster in Norway, aiming to develop solutions that will accelerate the availability of climate-neutral aviation technologies.

Last but not least, we are still growing! We welcome Patricia, Tim, Thomas and many other great talent to join Deutsche Aircraft. To accommodate this growth, we will be expanding into additional offices and facilities at Oberpfaffenhofen.

Enjoy the read!

Dave Jackson, Managing Director of Deutsche Aircraft

Deutsche Aircraft Achievements and Progresses

On 7th December 2021, we celebrate the one-year anniversary of Deutsche Aircraft. Coincidently it was also the 30th anniversary of the first flight of our legacy – D328-100 Turboprop aircraft. On the same day, we were invited to be panellist in the Hamburg Aviation Forum where our CTO Martin Nussler was part of the panel.

We are also proud to announce that we obtained three certifications according to international standards: EN 9100:2018 (former AS 9100D), including the requirements of EN ISO 9001:2015, and EN ISO 14001:2015. They demonstrate Deutsche Aircraft’s commitments to continuously improving its quality performance while reducing the environmental footprint of its operations and services, as well as taking concrete action to combat climate change.

D328® In Service Fleet Updates

Our hangar was busy for the past quarter. Among our work, we are pleased to highlight some of the achievements of our team:

We had Botswana Defense Force aircraft Do328-100 in for heavy maintenance (Phase 5), ADS-B upgrade and Installation of a modification for operation on unpaved Runways. Aircraft was released early December.
We performed heavy maintenance on Do328-100 from AeroRescue, which included a complete Repainting & EASA Registration and delivered it to an special mission operator in mid January.
We delivered to Private Wings’ repainted Do328-100 aircraft D-CAWA in cooperation with GA-ATS Oberpfaffenhofen.

D328ecoTM

The development of our D328eco platform keeps on progressing. We have announced several key suppliers, important strategic partnerships and we also completed the first Customer Advisory Board.

The key suppliers we have announced in the past few months are SupplyOn for Deutsche Aircraft’s digital supply chain management, Factory Design for the interior design, and DMD Solutions for support in certification.

We also teamed up with the North Energy Cluster (NEC/Energi I Nord) to achieve substantial short-term reductions of Northern Norway’s aviation climate footprint through low-carbon e-fuels. And in the mid-term, we aim to develop solutions to achieve zero climate impact.

Our Customer Advisory Board (CAB) was the first-ever online CAB. Due to current travel limitations and safety measures, we set up a virtual, interactive platform for our CAB members to engage meaningfully, including a pre-conference interactions, live sessions discussions with our senior management and Engineering teams, interactive 3D D328eco models. We collected valuable inputs from aircraft operators and leasing companies covering all 5 continents, to which will be taken into consideration as the program advances towards conclusion of PDR – Preliminary Design Review - phase.

Meet our Team

We are delighted to introduce you to more new talent in our team. This quarter, please meet Thomas Ahn, Chief Engineer, Patricia Ferrari, Head of Procurement and Tim Otte, Head of Flight Test.

Thomas Ahn

Thomas joined Deutsche Aircraft in January as the Chief Engineer for the D328eco program. He has had an extensive career in the aerospace industry with renowned companies such as Bombardier, Airbus deHavilland, Dornier and Grob Aircraft, where he held lead engineering positions in aircraft product development. The last 20 years have been mostly in Canada as the Chief Aircraft Integrator for Bombardier Aviation. In this role he was responsible for the aircraft configuration development of regional aircraft, commercial jets and business jets. Interesting to note though, his career started out 34 years ago in the Future Projects team of Dornier, defining the original concept of the Dornier 328!

Thomas holds a Mechanical Engineering degree from Augsburg University of Applied Sciences and had worked for several years as an aircraft mechanic prior to pursuing his engineering interests.

Tim Otte

Tim brings more than 30 years of experience in various aerospace companies and in different leading positions, ranging from civil programs like the Dornier 328 and 728 to a number of military programs such as Eurofighter, Tornado and A400M. In all positions the technical domains covered were flight physics, simulation, ground & flight test and/or aircraft systems. Tim studied Aerospace Engineering and started his career at Dornier.

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Patricia Ferrari

Patricia joined Deutsche Aircraft as the Head of Procurement. She was the vice president of supply chain of the Embraer Company. Appointed to the position in March 2018, she led the complete supply chain management organization to support Embraer business units. She coordinated operational activities resulting in cost-cutting measures, improved supplier performance and guaranteeing compliance.

Patricia holds a bachelor’s degree in Production Engineer Materials from the University of São Carlos as well as a master’s in Production Engineer.

With our rapid ramp up of employees to support our growth we are already using 9 buildings in Oberpfaffenhofen. To streamline our internal efficiency we along with our growth have secured an additional 3200m2 of office space in a brand new building that will be completed in Q4 this year. With the expansion of our facilities footprint, we aim to provide our growing team great working environments.

We are still hiring! Visit our career page and follow us on Linkedin to find our open positions.

Deutsche Aircraft Aligns with UN Sustainable Development Goals

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As part of its strategic focus on Sustainability, Deutsche Aircraft makes the globally recognized Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations its guiding principle for all business operations. To that end, a cross-departmental Sustainability Board was founded in December 2021. The board co-creates the company‘s Sustainability Strategy and steers its implementation across the company. Representatives from all departments meet bi-monthly and exchange on current developments in politics and society, collect and prioritize proposals of employees and coordinate corporate actions and communication. With the help of the Sustainability Board, Deutsche Aircraft does not only focus on developing and producing a sustainable aircraft, but also has a comprehensive approach to meet the selected UN Sustainable Development Goals with contributions from the entire organization.

Deutsche Aircraft in the News

This quarter, Deutsche Aircraft continued to increase its media coverage in key business and aviation media outlets. Here are some highlights of coverages of our past announcements. Enjoy the read!