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
Lee Monson, Boeing Business Jets' sales vice president, will succeed Borge Boeskov as BBJ president, when the latter reaches Boeing's mandatory retirement age of 65 in June 2002. Boeskov's leadership and BBJ team efforts have resulted in 71 announced sales and 56 green aircraft deliveries to completion centers, four of which are BBJ2s. There are currently 32 BBJs in service. Eight to 10 more aircraft will enter service before the end of the year, according to Monson.

Fred George, in San Diego
Goodrich says it is on track to FAA-certify its new SmartDeck cockpit display -- one of the first ``highway in the sky'' avionics platforms -- by early 2003. SmartDeck does away with traditional symbology, replacing it with a series of computer-generated window frames through which the pilot will fly a symbolic airplane over a realistic, shaded, 3-D terrain background. B/CA recently flew a prototype SmartDeck system in Goodrich's King Air 90, accompanied by demonstration pilot Todd Scholten and SmartDeck development engineer Roger Powers.

Fred George
Raytheon Aircraft and Rockwell Collins have joined forces to sweep the clutter out of the Hawker 800XP cockpit. Indeed, were it not for the Hawker's familiar ``ram's horns'' yokes and distinctive glareshield shape, some might mistake the revamped layout as one belonging in an all-new aircraft. Four, 10-by-eight-inch flat-panel displays dominate the instrument panel of the Hawker 800XP fitted with Pro Line 21 avionics, replacing the old aircraft's high-tech-antique mixture of five small CRTs and almost two dozen ``steam gauges.''