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.
Qantas will perform heavy maintenance on its Airbus A330 fleet at its own base at Brisbane, finally making what seemed like an overdue decision. The A330s will take the place of the declining fleet of 767s that Qantas maintains at Brisbane. The A330 will arrive there for maintenance in early 2010.
Australia will powerfully strengthen and reorient its defense forces in the face of a rising China that it expects to wield an increasingly long reach. Assessing risks in the changing Asian balance of power out to 2030, a defense white paper sets out plans for land-attack missiles as a strategic strike force based on a fleet of larger and more numerous warships.
Australia will help develop upgrades to the Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patroller under an agreement that Canberra says is its first step toward buying the aircraft. The country’s defense white paper released last week (Aerospace DAILY, May 4) set out a plan to replace the Royal Australian Air Force’s P-3C Orions with eight manned aircraft, presumed to be Poseidons, and up to seven large drones, possibly Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawks.
