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.
Driven partly by a need for more rescue aircraft during natural disasters, Chinese aircraft manufacturer Avic is looking to develop a new class of rotary-wing aircraft through one of its subsidiaries. It would be developed by Avicopter in coopertaion with Russian Helicopters, and could go into service in five to 10 years. The helicopter, called the Advanced Heavy Lifter, is being pitched as a civilian aircraft, but Avicopter has not ruled out military uses.
Japan is risking a rapid loss of fighter engineering skills, an official review of the industry warns, urging the government to avoid fully importing combat aircraft.
A heavy rotorcraft that Avicopter plans to develop with Russian Helicopters should go into service in the second half of the decade, produced under a program partly justified by the need for rescue aircraft amid natural disasters.
