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

Benet Wilson, Fred George
Dassault Aviation Group last week announced it booked 115 orders for Falcon Jet aircraft in 2008, including 23 sales to NetJets. The tally represents a 45.7 percent decline from 2007, an all-time sales record for Dassault. The firm had been enjoying sizable sales increases from 2003 to 2007, but in 2008 the bottom fell out of the market for business jet manufacturers, including Dassault.

Fred George
Mike Press, chief executive and president of St. Louis-based Sp Jets and an owner of an Eclipse aircraft, together with Mason Holland, a 60 percent deposit holder on an undelivered EA-500, announced plans to form Eclipse Jet LLC, a new firm that will seek to buy the assets of insolvent Eclipse Aviation during the upcoming liquidation auction.

Fred George
David Green, president of the Eclipse 500 Owners Club, initiated a conference call last week to as many as 150 Eclipse jet owners during which he and a core group of supporters proposed formation of “NewCo,” a nonprofit cooperative venture that would bid on the intellectual property of Eclipse Aviation at the upcoming Chapter 7 auction sale of the company’s assets.