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.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is now in the production phase of the MRJ regional jet program, with managers intending to apply continuous and rapid process improvement under the Japanese kaizan philosophy. They aim to begin assembling the first aircraft next year for an initial flight in 2012 and deliver it in early 2014, with no hint of a serious slip in the schedule so far.
Indonesia intends to acquire 180 Sukhoi Flankers and also to buy Lockheed Martin F-16s, says Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro, setting out plans for a massive expansion of the Southeast Asian country’s air-combat force. The announcement may bolster air-force equipment plans of Indonesia’s neighbors, depending on whether they expect the country’s future fighter fleet will really meet the government’s ambitions.
South Korea is backing studies for a 90-seat turboprop airliner, identified as a strategic program for its aerospace industry, while China’s Avic Aircraft separately negotiates with engine makers for its proposed 76-seat propliner. The two Asian aircraft would become competitors, and perhaps successors, to the Bombardier Q400 and ATR 72.
