Fred George

Chief Aircraft Evaluation Editor

Redmond, Oregon

Summary

Fred formerly served as senior editor and chief pilot with Business & Commercial Aviation and as Aviation Week & Space Technology's chief aircraft evaluation pilot. He has flown left seat in virtually every turbine-powered business jet produced in the past three decades. He now is managing member of Fred George Aero LLC of Redmond, Oregon.

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
Rockwell Collins’ RTA-4100 weather radar is a breakthrough technology that provides pilots with hands-free weather threat detection. This 17-pound wonder automatically scans hundreds of cubic miles of airspace ahead of the aircraft to detect storms as far away as 320 nm. With Fusion systems equipped with an 18-inch radar, such as Global Vision, the weather avoidance range is greater than 320 miles. The RTA-4100 also has a Doppler turbulence detection mode that has a 40-mile maximum range.

Fred [email protected]
Last year witnessed one of the most precipitous declines in new general aviation aircraft deliveries in the history of the industry, according to GAMA. There were only 2,276 unit deliveries, a drop of more than 42 percent compared to 2008. Billings slumped to $19.5 billion, a decline of more than one-fifth from the year earlier.

Fred George
Global Vision cockpits will feature a third-generation I-series (cryogenically cooled InSb), dual-band IR EVS camera from Esterline CMC Electronics. This offers four times the pixel density of the firm’s previous CMA-2600 EVS camera, along with considerably more powerful digital processing to clear up video images by filtering out thermal interference.