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.
XIAN, China — The proposed Sino-Russian Advanced Heavy Lifter (AHL) helicopter may be much larger than previously expected, some brief details revealed by Avicopter suggest. The helicopter is under study—as it has been since 2008—when the Russian and Chinese governments agreed to cooperate on its development. Gross weight will be 30-40 tons, says Avicopter, which had previously said it would weigh up to 30 tons.
Congestion, not narrowbody-beating operating economics, is likely to support sales of the Airbus A330-300 with its new option of low-weight certification. Although Airbus is now offering the aircraft with paperwork for a gross weight as low as 199 metric tons (439,000 lb.) for a range of 4,900 km (2,650 nm), the A330-300 will still have the unchanged wing, engines and structure of an airliner capable of operating at 242 tons and flying 10,800 km.
