Dornier 328 328-100

The 328-100 is the aircraft rolled out at Oberpfaffenhofen in October 1991 that first flew on 6 December of that year. Commercially, Dornier refined the product through suffixes — 110, 120, 130 — that the trade press and operators treat as separate versions; to the certification authority, however, all of them remain a single model, the Dornier 328-100, with approved changes identified as "Mod 10", "Mod 20" and "Mod 30". That mismatch explains why published figures for the turboprop 328 differ from one source to another: they describe not different aircraft but successive definition states of the same airframe.

The European data sheet fixes the dimensions shared by every propeller-driven variant and also the two maximum take-off masses approved in turn: 13 640 kg for the initial definition and 13 990 kg once the modifications were embodied. Certified seating capacity is 33 passengers, well above the 30 seats the 1984 market study had set as the target.

Testing was not uneventful. In December 1992 one prototype shed all six blades of a propeller in flight; they punctured the fuselage, and the aircraft rolled and lost altitude before the crew regained control. The incident did not stop commercial service entry in October 1993, but it did underline how the six-blade composite propeller was the most novel — and most exposed — piece of the design.

Years later five 328-100s found a second life far from regional aviation: between 2006 and 2007 they were deployed around the Australian coast as long-range search-and-rescue aircraft, fitted with radar, infrared sensors and a dispatch system that dropped rescue stores through an underwing emergency exit. It was the first demonstration that the airframe would take on missions far removed from passenger transport, a path the military conversions would follow.