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 current generation of high-performance turbofan aircraft are designed to cruise in the mid forties or above-not for boardroom bragging rights, but for exceptional fuel efficiency, to avoid the traffic congestion of lower altitudes and to top most of the weather. The result is a smoother ride for passengers. A few aircraft even push FL 510 when they are lightly loaded. A price must be paid, however, for such high-performance rewards: Pilots must exercise razor-edge pitch control during climb, cruise and descent.

Fred George
The Astra, since it was certificated in 1985, has earned a position as a performance star in the mid-size business-jet class (although sales have not been stellar). Indeed, it set 22 world records, clearly demonstrating Israel Aircraft Industries' (IAI) engineering prowess. IAI now has an even higher performance Astra, the SPX, that is slated for certification in late September, less than 14 months after its first flight in August 1994. (The current Astra SP will remain in production.)

FRED GEORGE
Early in 1998, if all goes according to plan, the FAA's Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) will be operational. WAAS, which is the FAA's official term for Wide Area Differential GPS (WADGPS), will enhance navigational signals from the global positioning system (GPS) in three ways: improve its accuracy, monitor signal integrity and assure critical-level signal reliability.