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.
The South Korean government 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 close competitors, and perhaps successors, to the Bombardier Q400 and ATR 72.
Japan’s defense ministry sees a sixth-generation manned fighter with counter-stealth capability for the 2030s, while South Korea is trying to form a consortium of developing countries to field an affordable fighter in the 2020s, positioning it between the Lockheed Martin F-16 and F-35.
BEIJING — Indonesia intends to acquire 180 Sukhoi Flankers and also to buy Lockheed Martin F-16s, Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro says, setting out plans for a massive expansion of the Southeast Asian country’s air combat force. If Indonesia is serious about buying 180 Flankers, then Canberra will almost certainly fund the Royal Australian Air Force’s plan for 100 Lockheed Martin F-35s, says Andrew Davies, an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Until now, there was a significant chance that Australia would buy fewer F-35s.
