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.
Japan is moving ahead with preliminary plans to build an operational stealth fighter after the ATD-X Shinshin program demonstrates much of the necessary technology in the next decade. The operational aircraft would be larger and powered by engines in the 22,000-lb.-thrust class, double that of the IHI Corp. XF5-1 engines that will propel the ATD-X. Accordingly, it would be about the size of a Eurofighter Typhoon or Boeing F/A-18E Super Hornet. The ATD-X is closer to the dimensions of the Saab Gripen.
Thai Airways has decided to keep nonstop flights from Bangkok to Los Angeles flown with Airbus A340-500s that it had previously decided to sell. Fuel is cheaper than it was when the airline decided to withdraw the service, and the A340-500s have proven hard to sell.
China’s two aircraft-making conglomerates, Avic 1 and 2, have been merged back together as a prelude to further reorganization, including a dedicated helicopter subsidiary. The combined organization, foreshadowed earlier this year, is called Avic, or China Aviation Industry Corp., as it was before it was split into Avic 1 and 2 in 1999. It encompasses almost the whole Chinese aircraft industry, with plants and research institutes spread across the country.
