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.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China has issued a type certificate for the Avicopter AC311, a key product in the development of China’s rotorcraft industry. Certification came at least six months later than the manufacturer expected. No reason for the delay was given.
AgustaWestland is turning its attention to setting up training and support bases in China after suspending talks for private assembly of its helicopters in the country. The company is not rejecting the possibility of eventually coming to an agreement with Chongqing Helicopter over assembly of AgustaWestland helicopters. But, in the meantime, an opportunity exists to train more of the pilots and other specialists who will be needed if manufacturers are to fully exploit the market.
Embraer and partner Avic plan to ramp up Chinese assembly of Legacy 600 and 650 business jets to six a year by 2015, with an initial focus on the local market. The operation will be profitable at that level, even though the plant at Harbin, built for the commercial aircraft from which the business jets are derived, has a capacity of 20 units a year, says Guan Dongyuan, Embraer’s president for China.
