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.
China’s newly formed helicopter company will be based in Tianjin, where the city government will take 31% of the share capital in a first step toward separating the rotary-wing business from national aircraft-making conglomerate Avic. Tianjin will also host a new production line with which the company will build light civilian helicopters, part of a range of initiatives that are turning the city, a big port close to Beijing, into a globally important aerospace center.
PRODUCTION STARTS: Korea Aerospace Industries has begun final assembly of the first unit in the KUH helicopter program it is undertaking with Eurocopter. Rollout is scheduled for August.
The first Airbus A330-300 flight control system failure in October 2008 took Australian investigators by surprise. The second, on Dec. 7, is intensifying concerns about potential risks lurking in cockpit automation designed to enhance air safety. Both events involved Qantas Airbus A330-300s flying the same Perth-Singapore route — and both are under investigation by the Australian Transport Safety Board (ATSB).
