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

By Fred George
Rated at 15,144 lb. thrust for takeoff up to ISA+15C, Pratt & Whitney Canada's PW814GA is the most advanced general aviation turbofan in its thrust class. Up front, it has a single-piece, wide-chord, 50-in.-diameter damper-less titanium fan and a two-stage, axial-flow, low-pressure booster with single-piece rotors that are powered by a three-stage low-pressure turbine.
Business Aviation

By Fred George
For more than a decade, Cessna’s mantra has been “It’s a sure thing.” The Citation M2 appears to epitomize everything that slogan entails.
Business Aviation

By Fred George
For as little as $2 million, you can buy a used Cessna Citation CJ1+ that can fly four passengers nearly 1,200 nm and land with 100-nm NBAA IFR reserves. That’s farther than some new light jets costing more than double the price. Cessna Aircraft delivered just over 100 of these entry-level light jets between late 2005 and early 2011, before the one-two Sunday punch of the Great Recession and arrival of the Embraer Phenom 100 knocked it out of production.
Business Aviation