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 has formally selected the Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning for an acquisition program for 42 short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing fighters, going through the motions of acquisition procedures even though it had no alternative.
Arriving late to the party, Japan finds that it has the second-biggest acquisition plan in the F-35 Lightning program but very little industrial participation.
Taiwan’s defense technology agency has raised performance in a second version of its Teng Yun surveillance drone, bringing the developmental aircraft close to a likely service standard, a program official said.
