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
There's been a half century trend toward reducing the number of flight crew members required to fly airplanes. Radio operators, navigators and flight engineers have gone the way of whistle-tuned transceivers, sextants for shooting stars and ignition system oscilloscopes. For the past three-plus decades, copilots also have been disappearing, as well, from FAR Part 23 turboprop and turbofan aircraft, leaving only a single pilot in the cockpit to handle all tasks.

Fred George
Cessna began deliveries of the Citation Encore+ in late April 2007, so the 2000 to 2007 Citation Encore just became an eligible candidate for B&CA's ongoing 20/Twenty used aircraft series. Cessna built 169 units during the seven-year production run, so the resale market hardly is flooded with them. Early models originally sold for about $7.2 million and today the asking price is more than $6 million. Late model 2006 Encore aircraft sold new for about $8 million and prices for used models are not much below that number.

Fred George
Step into the cabin of the new Challenger 605 and it's not hard to see why the Challenger has been the single best-selling model in the heavy-iron class for more than 10 years. If you're going to spend nine-plus hours in a long-range business aircraft, cabin comfort likely ranks high among your list of priorities. Cabin width is one of the key factors that determine cabin comfort and Challenger 600-series aircraft always have had the widest cabins in the large-cabin class.