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.
T he Model 45 is the nicest handling Learjet ever built, plus it has modern systems, class-leading cruise speed and a comfortable cabin. Candidly, though, when it entered service in the late 1990s, it had more than its share of growing pains. And at the time, Bombardier's technical and product support just wasn't up to the challenge. A decade later, the Learjet 45 is maturing into a top-notch performer and Bombardier's product support has improved as well. In many ways, as a result, a used Learjet 45 is a better buy today than when it was new.
The G650's cockpit will look a lot like today's PlaneView flight decks, having four, 14-inch, landscape configuration displays in the instrument panel, a triple-wide, but slimmer center console and standard head-up display system. The basic system is based upon an advanced version of the Honeywell Primus Epic with standard 3-D synthetic vision system (SVS) backgrounds for the PFDs, triplex FMS, 3-D automatic scanning RDR 4000 weather radar and update digital flight guidance control panel in the glareshield.
FlightSafety International has been chosen to provide G650 crew training services, and preparations are under way to integrate those programs at the Savannah Learning Center. Level D simulator certification is scheduled for 2011, well ahead of initial customer deliveries in 2012.
