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 projects to build a large commercial aircraft with more than 150 seats that will cost CNY50 billion to CNY60 billion (US$6.9 billion-US$8.3 billion) to develop. The company that will handle the project, to be set up by March, will stand apart from China’s current two main aircraft groups, Avic I and Avic II, the latest financial details show.
BEIJING – The Japanese Defense Ministry wants to buy more airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft and will fit its Kawasaki P-1 maritime patrollers, now under development, with radars that can detect cruise missiles. The moves are responses to rising Chinese cruise missile strike capabilities, says the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, adding that the government also is considering development of an advanced long-range surface-to-air missile system.
Hong Kong Airlines, a rapidly expanding affiliate of Hainan Airlines, has chosen Rolls-Royce Trent 700s to power 20 Airbus A330s it has on order, extending the engine company’s stranglehold on the Chinese market for that Airbus type. Rolls-Royce values the order at $1.2 billion. Deliveries will begin in 2010. All 125 A330s in service or on order for Chinese mainland and Hong Kong carriers have selected the Trent 700, says the engine maker, which also claims a 50% market share on the A330, whose strong recent sales have surprised even Airbus.
