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 ~fred_george@aviationweek.com
Cessna says it will continue to have the world’s fastest production civil aircraft after unveiling the Citation Ten, a second-generation model 750 that will cruise faster, higher and farther than the current Citation X, which reaches Mach 0.92.

Fred George (Phoenix)
Systems that generate synthetic three-dimensional images of terrain on cockpit flight displays could allow pilots to fly down to lower weather minimums in reduced visibility than they currently can using unaided vision. Key to unlocking that potential could be finding the best way to combine the complementary strengths of the database-derived synthetic vision system (SVS) and real-time imagery-based enhanced-vision system (EVS).

Fred George (Savannah, Ga. ), William Garvey (Savannah, Ga. )
Gulfstream Aerospace’s intent from the outset of the G650 project was to produce the ultimate—the largest, fastest, longest range, most luxurious and technically advanced business jet ever. And with FAA certification targeted for next year, those goals seem well within reach. But a chief competitor is also targeting the market. Bombardier Aerospace, whose original business jet was created to challenge Gulfstream’s supremacy—and named “Challenger” accordingly—is unveiling its own ultra-jet to go head-to-head with the G650.