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
The Falcon 2000 has one of the largest cabin cross-sections of any transcontinental U.S. range twin turbofan jets and yet it burns fuel like a midsize aircraft. No large-cabin business aircraft can equal its fuel efficiency. Operators can fly eight passengers 3,000 nm in double-club comfort at long-range cruise and burn just over 10,000 lb of fuel, assuming the aircraft has the optional 36,700-lb MTOW. That’s enough range to fly East Coast to West Coast against 85% probability headwinds.

Fred Georgefred_george@aviationweek.com
Cessna announced its new top-line flagship, the Citation Ten, at the 2010 NBAA Convention, providing potential customers with an introduction to the firm’s second-generation midsize speedster that will be delivered in 2013. The Ten will offer quicker climb times, higher cruise altitudes and higher cruise speeds, along with 6% to 7% more range, compared to the current Citation X.

Fred Georgefred_george@aviation.com
Plenty of heads turned at this year’s NBAA Convention in Atlanta, when Cessna announced that Garmin’s new G5000 integrated flight deck system would be standard equipment aboard its next generation Citation Ten Mach 0.92 flagship. Old-line business jet avionics makers certainly took notice. The move catapults Garmin into the upper end of the business jet market, landing the Olathe, Kan., upstart in a bare-knuckles brawl with Honeywell and Rockwell Collins as it attempts to wrest from them a sizable share of the air transport avionics business.