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

Fred George
More than 2,000 Beech King Air 200 twin turboprops currently are in service and Raisbeck Engineering’s modifications are aboard almost two-thirds of the aircraft in the active fleet, according to James Raisbeck, the firm’s founder and chairman. These systems enable the King Air 200 to fly higher, faster and farther, according to flight test data supplied by Raisbeck and confirmed by BCA in 1985 and 1995 studies.

Fred George
While Cessna gained considerable attention last month for a possible new single-turboprop aircraft, the company maintains that such an aircraft likely will not be announced in the near future. 350CE, the experimental single-engine turboprop registered to Cessna Aircraft seen flying into and out of the company’s Pawnee facility at McConnell AFB, Kan., is not a proof-of-concept aircraft that will precede the launch of a Cessna single-engine turboprop, according to company officials.

Fred George
Honeywell and Gulfstream have received a $1.2 million contract from NASA for an 11-month flight test program to evaluate head-down SmartView with an enhanced vision overlay. Officials from the two firms believe that the enhanced display has the potential to allow pilots to fly instrument approaches down to lower weather minimums than they can with unaided vision.