Fokker F28 Fellowship

Updated: October 2026 – A short fuselage, two slim engines at the rear, a tall T-tail and a fuselage end that opens like a beak on landing: that is the Fokker F28 Fellowship. With it, Fokker entered the jet age in the 1960s, and from it later came the Fokker 100 and the Fokker 70. You will hardly experience the F28 in scheduled service anymore. All the more interesting to know how to identify it with confidence in a museum, in old photos or on a rare encounter.

What is the Fokker F28 Fellowship?

The F28 is a twin-engine short-haul jet for about 65 to 85 passengers. Fokker had great success with the turboprop F27 Friendship and wanted to offer airlines a faster complement with jet engines. The name deliberately picks up on the sister model: Friendship became Fellowship.

In April 1962 Fokker officially announced the project. From the start, the F28 was a joint European program: Fokker built the nose with cockpit, the center fuselage and the inner wings, German partners – Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm and VFW-Fokker – supplied the forward and rear fuselage as well as the tail, and the Northern Irish company Shorts made the outer wings. Final assembly took place at Amsterdam Schiphol.

Other engines were initially under discussion, but the first prototype already flew with two Rolls-Royce Spey engines. This prototype with the registration PH-JHG took off on May 9, 1967. Certification followed in February 1969. The first order had been placed by Düsseldorf-based LTU, but the first scheduled flights were made by Norway’s Braathens SAFE on March 28, 1969. You will find more about the manufacturer and its history on the page about Fokker, and more about the engine builder at Rolls-Royce.

Technology: what makes the F28 special

At first glance the F28 follows the pattern of its time: low wing, rear engines, T-tail – a layout also used by the BAC One-Eleven and the Douglas DC-9. In the details, however, Fokker went its own way, and exactly these details help you identify it today.

The best-known feature is the tail cone as an airbrake. The end of the fuselage consists of two hydraulically operated shells that swing out to the sides and increase drag. That lets the aircraft fly a steeper approach and decelerate faster after touchdown. The F28 had no thrust reverser; instead, multi-part spoilers extend on the wing and dump lift, and the wheel brakes work with an anti-skid system.

On almost all aircraft the wing has a fixed leading edge without slats. Only the rare Mk 6000 got slats. Add a sturdy landing gear that also copes with basic runways; and because there is no thrust reverser, the engines also draw in less dirt on unpaved strips. This ruggedness explains why the F28 was so popular on island networks, in the outback and in countries with little developed infrastructure.

The versions at a glance

On the F28, Fokker varied mainly two things: the fuselage length and the wingspan. That gives four main versions that you can tell apart with a bit of practice.

Version	Fuselage	Wing	Seats (typical)	Special feature
Mk 1000	short, around 27.4 m	short, around 23.6 m	around 65	Base version, certified 1969
Mk 2000	stretched, around 29.6 m	short	up to 79	First flight 1971, only around ten built
Mk 3000	short	extended, around 25.1 m	around 65	strengthened structure, more fuel capacity
Mk 4000	stretched	extended	up to 85	Overwing emergency exits, most successful version
Mk 6000	stretched	extended, with slats	–	First flight 1973, only very few built

The Mk 4000 was certified in December 1976, debuted with Sweden’s Linjeflyg and became the bestseller of the series. A Mk 5000 with a shorter fuselage and slats remained a project, as did an American licensed spin-off from Fairchild. For identification in the field, one question usually suffices: long or short fuselage? On the long versions you see clearly more windows ahead of the wing.

F28, Fokker 70 or Fokker 100?

Anyone who sees an F28 quickly thinks of the successors. The family is closely related: the Fokker 100 came about in the 1980s as a heavily stretched and modernized F28, the Fokker 70 as its short version. After F28 production ended in 1987, only these two jets still rolled off the line in Amsterdam.

Feature	Fokker F28	Fokker 70	Fokker 100
ICAO type designator	F28	F70	F100
First flight	1967	1993	1986
Length	around 27.4 to 29.6 m	around 30.9 m	around 35.5 m
Engines	Rolls-Royce Spey	Rolls-Royce Tay	Rolls-Royce Tay
Roof windows above the cockpit	yes	no	no
Cockpit	classic round gauges	screens	screens
Built	241	around 48	283

The F28’s Spey engines sit in slimmer, elongated nacelles, while the Tay of the successors look thicker. The wings of the Fokker 70 and 100 are also larger. The quickest way to tell them apart, though, is through the windows: the small extra panes above the windshield exist only on the F28.

Easily confused with other 1960s jets

The F28 arrived at a time when several manufacturers offered small jets with rear engines. On old photos, mix-ups are therefore easy. The BAC One-Eleven is the closest visual relative: also Spey engines at the rear, also a T-tail. Its fuselage ends in a point, though, and the nose looks longer and slimmer. The DC-9 has a pointed tail, a distinctly swept wing and, in most versions, a clearly longer fuselage.

For an overview of the small jets that still fly today, see the article How to tell regional jets apart. For vintage aircraft and classics, the guide Identifying vintage aircraft is a good fit.

Operators: from Norway to Indonesia

The F28 sold in many parts of the world. The largest operator was Garuda Indonesia with a total of 62 aircraft; on Indonesia’s island networks, size and ruggedness were a perfect fit. In Scandinavia, besides Braathens SAFE, Linjeflyg and SAS also flew the type. In South America, Aerolíneas Argentinas and the Colombian state airline Satena, among others, used F28s; in Asia, for example, Biman Bangladesh Airlines. In the USA, the F28 was part of the fleet of USAir, and in Australia of Ansett.

Western Europe knew the type too. In the Netherlands, KLM and Martinair flew the F28, in Great Britain Air UK, in Denmark Cimber Air. Add Iberia and Turkish Airlines.

The F28 in Germany

For German spotters, the F28 is closely tied to LTU: the Düsseldorf charter airline had placed the first order for the type and was among the very first operators. Other German users were Germanair and Aviaction. There was also the close industrial link: large parts of the fuselage and tail came from German production at VFW-Fokker and MBB. Anyone going through old photos of German airports in the 1970s therefore keeps coming across F28s in German colors.

Military and state flights

Besides airlines, numerous air forces and governments used the F28, mostly as a transport or VIP aircraft. Military users included Argentina, Indonesia, Colombia, Peru, Malaysia, the Philippines and the Netherlands. In South America in particular, the F28 lasted longest in state service: Argentina’s LADE, a flight service run by the air force, was still flying F28s until recently and is replacing them with Embraer regional jets. Whether an aircraft still flies regularly as of October 2026 is open – better not count on it.

How to follow government aircraft in general is covered in the article Spotting government aircraft.

Where you can still see the F28 today

Because scheduled civil service has practically ended, the way to the F28 usually leads to a museum. A few examples:

Place	What to expect
Norwegian Aviation Museum Bodø	F28 Mk 1000 LN-SUC – fitting for the history, since Braathens SAFE was the first scheduled operator
Museo Nacional de Aeronáutica, Morón (Argentina)	F28 Mk 1000C of the Argentine Air Force
Jakarta-Halim Perdanakusuma (Indonesia)	F28 Mk 3000 of the Indonesian Air Force as an exhibit
Various places in Indonesia and Myanmar	retired F28s as a monument, cinema, bar or attraction

If you are planning a museum tour, check beforehand whether the aircraft is currently on display. Exhibits get moved, restored or given away. If you collect registrations, the article Collecting registrations as a hobby is worth a look.

Spotting and photo tips

With the F28, much revolves around details at the tail and the cockpit. In a museum you have all the time in the world for that.

If a flying F28 does turn up, filter your tracking app for the type code F28. How the codes are structured is explained in ICAO type designators explained. You can judge how rare such a sighting would be with How to judge the rarity of a sighting, and Spotting rare aircraft offers strategies for rarities.

Why the F28 matters for aviation history

The F28 was Fokker’s entry into the jet market and an early example of European division of labor in aircraft building – years before Airbus implemented the idea on a large scale. With 241 aircraft in around two decades it was not a mass product, but a solid success, above all in markets with short runways and demanding conditions.

Its most important legacy is the Fokker 100. Fuselage cross-section, basic layout and the distinctive split tail cone carried over into the next generation, which was built with Tay engines and a glass cockpit until 1997. Anyone who sees a Fokker 100 or 70 on approach today still recognizes the lines of the F28 in it.

Conclusion

A short fuselage, slim Spey engines at the rear, T-tail, split tail cone and small roof windows above the cockpit: this combination makes the Fokker F28 Fellowship unmistakable. From 1967 to 1987, 241 were built, flying from Norway to Indonesia and also in service in Germany with LTU, Germanair and Aviaction. Today it is a historic type that you meet almost only in museums.