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.
If there is one area in which China has had persistent difficulty catching up with Western aerospace technology, it is aviation gas turbines. Chinese aero-engines are known for poor efficiency and low reliability, and it would well suit China's neighbors and the U.S. if they kept that reputation. So the prospect of MTU Aero Engines and Avio working on a major Chinese commercial turbofan program prompts a critical question: will technology transfer be strictly contained?
BEIJING—Guangzhou Aircraft Maintenance & Engineering (Gameco) will try specialization as a way to drive up efficiency by allocating one of its sites to Airbus A320 maintenance.
BEIJING — China’s Tiangong 1 orbital laboratory, successfully launched Sept. 29, will serve as a docking target for three missions over the coming two years as China continues to take measured, careful steps in its manned space program. For the moment, the biggest goal of the program is a 60-metric-ton space station to be placed in orbit by 2020, although Chinese space scientists also hope to launch lunar missions.
