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.
BEIJING — The Alenia Aermacchi M-346 has won Singapore’s advanced jet trainer competition, a South Korean news report suggests. Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) has failed in its bid to supply the T-50 to Singapore, reports the Yonhap news agency. Since M-346 was the only other competitor, the report implies that Alenia Aermacchi will get the contract to supply a 25-year training capability. Between 11 and 14 aircraft were expected to be needed to meet the requirement.
Boeing is supplying sheet-metal-making equipment from its factory in Melbourne, Australia, to aspiring Indian aerostructures and aircraft maker Mahindra Aerospace (DAILY, July 12). The heavy equipment was used in a fabrication shop at the Fishermens Bend factory that has been surplus because the factory, now focused on the 787 program, ceased making sheet-metal parts 18 months ago. Mahindra Aerospace will install the equipment at an aerostructures factory it plans to build at a site in India it has not yet chosen.
Mahindra Aerospace has agreed to buy a Boeing plant in Melbourne, Australia, and will move the equipment to a facility to be built in India, kick-starting a new aerostructures business there, says an industry executive familiar with the transaction. Mahindra will work with a first-tier supplier to set up the Indian plant, says the source. Boeing has a plant at Fishermen’s Bend in Melbourne, one of two under its Boeing Aerostructures Australia division. The other is at Bankstown in Sydney.
