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.
TOKYO—Mitsubishi Aircraft expects to achieve its new target for full-rate production of 10 MRJ regional jets a month about five years after beginning deliveries. The ramp-up plans were revealed by Mitsubishi Aircraft President Teruaki Kawai at a meeting of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) this week, and provide good indication as to how many production slots the company has available between 2017 and 2022.
The new subsidiary, Fuzhou Airlines, will compete at one of the two key bases of China’s sixth-largest carrier, Xiamen Airlines, which plans a big lift in capacity next year at Fuzhou. The new carrier has begun flying to Beijing, and other early destinations will be Shanghai, Xian, Haikou, Taiyuan, Chongqing, Hefei, Kunming and Tianjin.
Studies by the Japanese defense ministry’s Technical Research and Development Institute that point to the advantages of big fighters with the fuel capacity and aerodynamic optimization to keep them on station longer. Range alone is not enough, however. The aircraft also should be networked.
