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
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
Modern business aircraft efficiently cruise as high as 51,000 feet, where the outside air pressure is 89-percent less than that at sea-level and the temperature is a decidedly brisk -56.5°C (-87.7°F). If you were exposed unprotected to such an extreme altitude and temperature, you would lose consciousness in three to five seconds and then freeze to death in a matter of minutes.

Fred George
Think that an Airbus is too big for routine business travel between North America and Europe? Try boarding 11 company employees on a conventional large-cabin business jet for a nine-hour overnight flight between the continents. Then, count the number of fully berthable seats. Most purpose-built, large-cabin business aircraft will sleep no more than six or seven. These 11 travelers are likely to lament this mission as another transatlantic "red eye."