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 [email protected]
Albuquerque, N.M.-based Eclipse Aviation said yesterday that it has filed for Chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. The airframer simultaneously applied for a sale of its assets in accordance with Section 363 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code to the European Technology and Investment Research Center (ETIRC), a company that is Eclipse’s largest shareholder with an investment estimated to be close to $140 million. ETIRC Chairman Roel Pieper also is acting CEO of Eclipse Aviation.

Fred George
What’s missing from this cockpit? Pilots with Citation 560XL type ratings may wonder if they’re entering another aircraft model when they first see the four, 10-by-eight inch LCD adaptive flight displays in the front office of Citation XLS+. Some of the cockpit’s basic systems controls layout is the same as the previous Excel and XLS, but the total revamp with Pro Line 21 yields welcome ergonomic improvements.

Fred George
These graphs are designed to illustrate the performance of the Citation XLS+ under a variety of range, payload, speed and density altitude conditions. Do not use these data for flight planning purposes because they are gross approximations of actual aircraft performance.