Gulfstream’s Mark Burns, FLYING’s Fred George Inducted Into Living Legends of Aviation

The awards—produced to benefit the Kiddie Hawk Air Academy—were established in 2003 to honor “people who have made significant contributions to aviation, including entrepreneurs, innovators, industry leaders, astronauts, record breakers, pilots who have become celebrities and celebrities who have become pilots,” according to a release.

Industry leader Burns—a 40-plus-year veteran of Gulfstream—joined the company in 1983 as a CAD operator and worked in several areas, including engineering and customer support, prior to his promotion to president in July 2015. Gulfstream sits on the cusp of FAA type certification on the G700 and G800, pending the completion of the process by the agency. Burns, a Savannah, Georgia, native, also serves as a vice president for parent company General Dynamics.

Burns was honored with the Lifetime Aviation Industry Award.

George began his connection with aviation in his earliest years, when his father—a naval officer and private pilot—sat him in the back of a BT-13 Vultee on his mother’s lap for a flight around the San Fernando Valley in California. That sparked a life with his eyes pointed toward the skies. After graduating from UCLA, George became a Naval aviator in 1971, flying the F-4 Phantom and making more than 300 carrier landings. He flew corporate after leaving the Navy and turned to aviation journalism in the 1980s—a path he continues to pursue with his contributions (again) to FLYING Magazine as its senior business aviation editor. Over the past 40 years, he’s flown and reported on more than 230 different aircraft.

George was honored as a 2024 inductee into Living Legends of Aviation.

Noted for their contributions to the industry and greater good of aviation, the following people were also feted at the event: