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
These graphs are designed to illustrate the performance of the SJ30-2 under a variety of range, payload, speed and density altitude conditions. Do not use these data for flight planning purposes because they are gross approximations of actual aircraft performance.

Fred George
By the mid-1970s, the Pratt & Whitney Canada PT-6 was installed on all King Air models, including the newly introduced 100 series. Concerned about its reliance on a single source for motive power, Beech Aircraft decided to pursue a short-lived policy of "engine diversity" to spur competition. Accordingly, the company launched development of a second King Air 100, one to be powered by a pair of 715-shp Garrett AiResearch TPE331-6 engines.

Fred George
What's it like to pilot the world's first fly-by-wire (FBW) business jet? Dassault provided B&CA with an exclusive opportunity to find out firsthand when we belted into the left seat of the Falcon 7X at its Istres Air Base Flight Test Center for a two-hour demo flight in mid-July.