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.

Read more

Articles

By Fred George [email protected]
The super-midsize class has been one of the hottest selling segments of business aircraft in recent years. These versatile aircraft can fly eight passengers nonstop between East Coast and West Coast North American cities at true jetliner speeds. They also can fly nonstop across the North Atlantic eastbound. Almost all can fly westbound from England or Ireland to the U.S. East Coast. To fly from virtually any city in Europe to any destination in North America, they need no more than one refueling stop.

Fred George
In the first quarter of this year, the Falcon 900LX is slated to be the first Falcon Jet equipped with second-generation EASy II avionics. All Falcon 900LX aircraft on the assembly line are being upgraded with second-generation advanced graphics modules with more processing power to handle an optional synthetic vision system function that will be part of EASy II.

Fred George
The -60 is the most powerful variant of the second-generation TFE731 turbofan engine, producing 5,000 lb of thrust up to ISA+17°C. The engine is equipped with a single-channel, fail-passive, N1 referenced DEEC that provides most of the functionality of a dual-channel, fail-active FADEC.