Deutsche Aircraft Completes First Five Landing Gear Development Flights on D328 Testbed

Deutsche Aircraft has completed the first five development flights of its dedicated D328 flying testbed as part of the landing gear certification programme for the next-generation D328eco. Flight testing began on 5 August 2026, and the aircraft has since accumulated more than 15 hours of test time with the new landing gear system, covering both flight and ground testing activities. The company said all planned test objectives were achieved.

Nico Neumann, CEO of Deutsche Aircraft, said: "The successful completion of the ground and taxi test campaign, together with the first flights of our landing gear testbed, is an important achievement. The results provide strong validation of the landing gear system and enable us to move into the next phase of flight testing as we continue the certification process." Aaron Tsang, Head of Design Organisation and VP Engineering, said using a legacy D328 as a dedicated flying testbed "enabled us to efficiently validate the landing gear system across the full operational envelope, from structural ground testing to taxi operations and flight testing."

As part of the programme, Deutsche Aircraft has transitioned to a new landing gear supplier and secured full intellectual property rights for the system, placing the landing gear architecture under the company's direct engineering authority. Upcoming certification activities will cover structural, ground-handling and flight-test environments, with data from the campaign supporting continued certification of the D328eco programme.

Using a retired airframe as a dedicated flying testbed is a familiar approach in certification programmes: it lets an OEM isolate a single system, here the landing gear, and run it through structural, taxi and flight regimes without tying up a production or prototype aircraft. Deutsche Aircraft frames this campaign specifically around de-risking the D328eco's undercarriage ahead of broader certification milestones.

The supplier change and the move to hold full intellectual property rights over the landing gear architecture matter beyond this single test campaign. For an OEM, owning the design authority for a major structural system reduces exposure to a single supplier's production schedule or parts availability, which the company links directly to spare-parts constraints and lifecycle support for existing D328 operators.

What happens next is a matter of process: the programme moves into further flight-test phases covering structural, ground-handling and flight-test environments, with the data feeding the D328eco certification file. Whether the in-house landing gear architecture delivers the intended supply and lifecycle benefits will be visible only once it is supporting aircraft in service.