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.
Chinese aircraft makers are planning a range of new civil models, even before their current big project, the ARJ21 large regional jet, rolls out at the end of this year. Avic I, one of the country's two aviation conglomerates, says it is considering a new turboprop transport, a business jet and a new aircraft for general aviation.
All three engines offered for Bombardier's CSeries narrowbody airliner have bypass ratios around 10 to 1, similar to those of the turbofans available on the Boeing 787 and far ahead of the engines on the 737, Airbus A320 and Embraer 195. Project Director Benjamin Boehm says the assessment of the engines is one of the few remaining technical issues to be dealt with before the company decides in the next 12 months whether to launch the aircraft, which would be built in two versions, of 110 and 130 seats.
Airbus is arguing that a set of new developments in the Asian airline business will push demand for wide-body aircraft, notably its A330, which is selling faster than the company expected, despite the announcement of its A350 replacement.
