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.
Bombardier’s Global 5000, the truncated version of the Global Express fitted with smaller fuel tanks, has the best cabin of any business aircraft in this range class, along with the fastest cruise speeds and best runway performance, according to operators. They like its cockpit room, soft ride in turbulence, automated systems and three seating zones in the main cabin. Compared to the Global Express, the Global 5000 has a 5.9-foot overall shorter cabin and 5,800 to 7,000 pounds less weight at takeoff, depending upon Service Bulletins.
Pilatus broke an all-time delivery record in 2009 with 100 next-generation PC-12 aircraft reaching customers. That’s a prime reason why the size of the used PC-12 aircraft inventory has climbed to 10% of the active fleet, said Chris Finnoff, president of Boulder, Colo.-based Finnoff Aviation. The firm specializes in buying and selling used PC-12 aircraft. “People are trading their older PC-12 aircraft for the NG model. It has a higher max continuous horsepower rating, so it’s faster than older models,” Finnoff said.
Development of the 2,250-nautical-mile, 440-KTAS midsize Spectrum S.40 Freedom is proceeding at a slow, but deliberate pace because of tight financing made worse by the failures of several light-jet startup ventures, Linden Blue, chairman and chief executive of Spectrum Aeronautical, LLC, said last week. Most of the funding for Spectrum S.40 Freedom is coming from internal sources.
