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
The production life expectancy of most high-performance piston singles and twins, plus some entry-level turboprops, may be even shorter than predicted by twin-turbofan VLJ proponents. That's because the price of admission to the jet set is being further reduced with the introduction of the single-engine personal light jet, or PLJ. Even the most ardent VLJ promoters see a market for less expensive entry-level single turbofan aircraft.

Fred George
Business jets operate over an impressively wide speed range. High-performance models typically can cruise at 450 KTAS to 480 KTAS, enabling them to dash from coast to coast in the United States in about five hours and between the United States and Europe in seven to eight hours. They're also able to fly as slow as 25 percent of cruise speed for takeoff and landing, enabling them to bypass congested commercial jetports and instead use thousands of small, general aviation airports conveniently sited close to most business destinations.

Fred George
The Mystere-Falcon 50, type certified in March 1979 and first of a new generation of fuel-efficient Dassault Aviation tri-jets, always has been one of our favorite business aircraft. It has excellent standard-day runway performance, it offers transatlantic range and it's a joy to fly. But the original 3,700-pound-thrust AlliedSignal TFE731-3 engines were only flat-rated to 76°F (24.4°C) OAT sea level, thus impairing the aircraft's hot-and-high takeoff performance. Too, climb and cruise performance were less than best in class.