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.
Frances Fiorino (Washington), Bradley Perrett (Beijing)
The first Airbus A330-300 flight control system failure in October 2008 took Australian investigators by surprise. The second, on Dec. 7, has intensified concerns about potential risks lurking in cockpit automation designed to enhance air safety. Both events involved Qantas Airbus A330-300s flying the same Perth-Singapore route—and both are under investigation by the Australian Transport Safety Board (ATSB).
Korea Aerospace Industries can expect to build a combat version of its T-50 supersonic trainer until at least 2016, following the government’s issue of a development contract for the FA-50 attack variant. The government has chosen to fit the FA-50 with the EL/M-2032 radar from the Elta division of Israel Aerospace Industries. In 2007, the U.S.—exercising its right to prevent the aircraft from becoming a competitor to the Lockheed Martin F-16—blocked the first choice, the British-built Vixen 500E radar from Italy’s Selex Galileo.
THUNDERING AHEAD: The Pakistan Aeronautical Complex is ready to begin series production of the JF-17 Thunder fighter as soon as the government gives it the go-ahead. The complex can build 50 of the aircraft a year, according to its chairman, Air Marshal Khalid Chaudhry. The JF-17 has been developed in collaboration with China, where it is called the FC-1. Chaudhry says the complex can make 75 percent of the JF-17’s avionics and 58 percent of its airframe. The engine is the Klimov RD-93 from Russia.
