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.

Read more

Articles

Fred George
Want to give your old King Air C90B new C90GTi performance? Blackhawk offers a -135A engine swap that can add 30 knots cruise speed, boost its rate of climb, raise its OEI service ceiling and lower operating costs. Performance increases are similar with older C90 aircraft not having pitot engine inlets, but maximum cruise speeds are about 10 knots lower. If you also incorporate the G1000 upgrade, your aircraft will have virtually all the avionics capabilities of a Cessna Citation Mustang.

Fred George [email protected]
Albuquerque, N.M.-based Eclipse Aviation said yesterday that it has filed for Chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. The airframer simultaneously applied for a sale of its assets in accordance with Section 363 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code to the European Technology and Investment Research Center (ETIRC), a company that is Eclipse’s largest shareholder with an investment estimated to be close to $140 million. ETIRC Chairman Roel Pieper also is acting CEO of Eclipse Aviation.

Fred George
What’s missing from this cockpit? Pilots with Citation 560XL type ratings may wonder if they’re entering another aircraft model when they first see the four, 10-by-eight inch LCD adaptive flight displays in the front office of Citation XLS+. Some of the cockpit’s basic systems controls layout is the same as the previous Excel and XLS, but the total revamp with Pro Line 21 yields welcome ergonomic improvements.