Bradley Perrett covered China, Japan, South Korea and Australia. He is a Mandarin-speaking Australian.
Before joining Aviation Week in 2006 he was a macroeconomics, politics and aerospace journalist with Reuters. Perrett holds a bachelor’s degree in law from Macquarie University, Sydney. He left Aviation Week in 2020.
TOKYO—Japan is expected to soon issue a long-awaited request for proposals for its F-X fighter competition, despite a media report that the country has settled on the Lockheed Martin F-35 as a future combat aircraft. In a rare piece of recent good news for the Joint Strike Fighter program, the Mainichi newspaper reported on Nov. 8 that the ministry planned to request “procurement costs” for the F-35 in its Fiscal 2012 budget request, covering the period from April 1, 2012.
The first orders for the Comac C919 aircraft total no more than 55, a surprisingly small figure that includes a mere five for each of China's big state airlines. China Southern, Air China and China Eastern will also take options on only 15 each—suggesting an extraordinarily low degree of commitment to a project on which China is pinning its future as a commercial aircraft builder.
Hainan Airlines has joined the line-up of carriers that will place the first orders for the Comac C919 airliner this week, while banking giant ICBC also negotiates to buy the aircraft. Contracts from China’s three biggest airlines, General Electric Commercial Aviation Services (Gecas) and China Development Bank are also expected among the batch of first orders, which will total about 100, or possibly 120, and be announced at Airshow China this week in Zhuhai.
