Fred George

Chief Aircraft Evaluation Editor

San Diego, CA

Summary

Fred is a senior editor and chief pilot with Business & Commercial Aviation and Aviation Week's chief aircraft evaluation pilot. He has flown left seat in virtually every turbine-powered business jet produced in the past three decades.

He has flown more than 195 makes, models and variants, ranging from the Piper J-3 Cub through the latest Boeing and Airbus large twins, logging more than 7,000 hours of flight time. He has earned an Airline Transport Pilot certificate and six jet aircraft type ratings, and he remains an active pilot. Fred also specializes in avionics, aircraft systems and pilot technique reports.

Fred was the first aviation journalist to fly the Boeing 787, Airbus A350 and Gulfstream G650, among other new turbofan aircraft. He’s also flown the Airbus A400M, Howard 500, Airship 600, Dassault Rafale, Grumman HU-16 Albatross and Lockheed Constellation.

Prior to joining Aviation Week, he was an FAA designated pilot examiner [CE-500], instrument flight instructor and jet charter pilot and former U.S. Naval Aviator who made three cruises to the western Pacific while flying the McDonnell-Douglas F-4J Phantom II.

Fred has won numerous aviation journalism awards, including NBAA’s David W. Ewald Platinum Wing Lifetime Achievement Award.

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Articles

By Fred George fred_george@aviationweek.com
Plenty of diehard Eclipse 500 skeptics scoffed at Mason Holland, chairman and CEO of Eclipse Aerospace, when he announced at the 2011 NBAA Convention that his firm intended to resume building the aircraft sometime in 2013. Cynics all but buried the very light jet (VLJ) concept after EA500 production stopped in 2008, writing it off as a misguided, overhyped folly of Vern Raburn, founder of failed Eclipse Aviation (See Fast Five, page 25.)

William Garvey (Las Vegas), Fred George (Las Vegas)
Although he's been on the job for just four months, Scott Ernest, CEO and president of Cessna Aircraft, is pushing the throttles at the beleaguered airframer and accelerating the introduction of two new Citation models to counter new competitors in the light jet market, which Cessna has dominated for decades.

Fred George
The T-6 Texan II advanced trainer, AT-6 light air support aircraft and intelligence/surveillance/reconnaissance versions of its King Air models are some of the most profitable parts of Hawker Beechcraft Corp.’s business. “We’re not selling it. We’re pleased with the diversification, and it gives us sustaining revenues in a bad time,” Bill Boisture, company chairman and CEO, told Aviation Week at the recent National Business Aviation Association’s annual convention.