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.
Heavy airframe maintenance hangers keep rising across China, and plenty more are on the drawing board. The problem is that wages also keep rising, faster than almost anywhere. In an economy that grows at 10% a year, industries are forever competing with each other for skills, and for eager young people to train. At some point, the Chinese economy will be too sophisticated to be competitive globally in the labor-intensive business of heavy airframe maintenance.
Boeing, now formally offering radio-frequency identification (RFID) to keep parts records on aircraft already in service, is looking at introducing the technology as factory standard on commercial and military aircraft. The company expects the FAA to certify the system by the end of the year, says Program Manager Phil Coop.
