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.
It can be assumed that China is developing a combat drone, maybe several. The technology is so obviously part of the future that the rising power cannot ignore it. But making even tentative conclusions about China's progress in the field is not easy. The country's rapid advances in fighter technology suggest it may be little more than a decade behind the West; yet even the U.S. is still years from deploying an unmanned strike aircraft with the penetration capabilities of a modern fighter.
China’s state-controlled ABC Financial Leasing has ordered 45 Comac C919s, bringing claimed orders for the 158-seat jet to 280 aircraft. The actual number of aircraft that the lessor has ordered, however, is unclear because Comac previously has counted options as orders. Comac also counts orders from some contracts that are not binding, according to industry officials who have seen the documents. A Comac representative did not immediately respond to a request for delivery dates and a breakdown of orders and options in the ABC contract.
