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.
Since MHI is only assembling F-35s, apparently using no domestically made structural parts, the program is not sustaining much of Japan’s skills in fighter manufacturing.
China’s main builder of space launchers is developing what it calls a low-cost rocket that is likely to replace part of its venerable Long March 3 series.
Chinese state space contractor CASC will lighten the first-stage motor of its Long March 11 launcher, increasing throw weight, and also seems to be planning a second and larger solid-propellant launcher.
