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.
TOKYO — South Korea will have a homogenous force of 16 upgraded Lockheed Martin P-3 Orion maritime aircraft by 2018 under an L-3 and Korean Air Lines program to refit eight aircraft that remain unmodernized. Separately, the South Korean navy is seeking 20 more maritime aircraft, which would considerably augment its anti-submarine capability.
ATR, lacking agreement between its joint owners, does not expect to launch its proposed 90-seat turboprop this year, despite strong interest from its largest customers. In the meantime, the airframer’s engineers are still refining the design of the aircraft, which would extend ATR’s product range above the 70-seat ATR 72, says CEO Filippo Bagnato.
The Chinese government likes to make neat plans. One of the neatest is the policy of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) that the country should have three major state airlines, based widely apart, and that each should turn its home airport into its single major hub.
