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.
When your passengers arrive at the entry door, they want to board an aircraft that offers a heated or air-conditioned refuge from the outside environment, just like the cabin of a modern jetliner. They also expect that you'll be ready to start engines and taxi within moments of shutting the cabin door. And they'll want the aircraft they're boarding to have such capabilities at any landing facility, regardless of the availability of ground support equipment.
In the late 1980s, British Aerospace (BAe) embarked upon development of the 30-passenger Jetstream 41 regional turboprop, an updated and stretched version of the 1960s-vintage, 19-seat Handley-Page Jetstream 31. The J41 would have a seven foot longer cabin, 25- to 30-knot higher cruise speeds and improved airport performance, especially at high-and-high landing facilities. The low-price, low-DOC J41 was intended to compete against considerably more modern and roomier regional commuters, such as the Dornier 328, Embraer EMB-120 Brasilia and Saab 340.
Where's Vern?" were likely to be the two most frequently heard words as Eclipse Aviation's early Monday, July 23 press conference was to get under way at this year's Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wis. As scripted, Peg Bilson, the firm's chief operating officer, was to preside over most of the event, whose centerpiece was to be a concept mockup of a single-engine personal jet being evaluated by Eclipse. Company founder, president and CEO Raburn, she was to explain, would arrive sometime later.
