Return of the Rural Transports - Twin Otter, Dornier 228 and Nomad

The good designs of the Twin Otter, the Dornier Do-228 and the Nomad airplanes, together with enough market demand, will bring these Rural Transport type aircrafts back into production.

The Nomad is an Australian-designed 12 seater twin turboprop Rural Transport type aircraft with 170 units built from 1971 to 1984 when production ended. 54 Nomads remain operational worldwide according to Gippsland Aeronautics, the maker of the 8 seater GA-8 Airvan that bought the Nomad design from Boeing Australia last June. The Next-Generation Nomad has already two letters of intent from two Australian operators and expected to be in production by 2010.

Nomad

The Dornier Do-228 is a German-designed twin turboprop Rural Transport type aircraft with a 19 seat capacity. More than 200 were built from 1981 to 1998 when production ended. In 2003, RUAG of Germany acquired the design of the aircraft from the insolvent Fairchild-Dornier as part of its purchase of the Aircraft Services Division. In October 2007, RUAG decided to resume series production of the aircraft as the Do 228 New Generation. The fuselage, wings and tail unit will be supplied by Hindustan Aeronautics of India, and final assembly will be at RUAG's Pfaffenhofen plant. First deliveries of the new aircraft model is expected in 2010.

Dornier 228

The Twin Otter is a Canadian-designed twin turboprop 19 seat Rural Transport type aircraft that was produced from 1965 to 1988 with more than 800 aircraft built. In 2006, Canada's Viking Air bought the design from Bombardier and will use some of the Twin Otter's original toolings to manufacture the new generation Series 400 model. First deliveries of the new generation Twin Otter Series 400 model will be in 2010.

Twin Otter