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.
BEIJING — BAE Systems will upgrade 134 F-16s for the South Korean air force, making a rare incursion into a combat aircraft market that has long been reserved for U.S. companies. But a U.S. unit of the British company will do the work, which covers design and integration of a package comprising a new radar, mission computer, Link 16 datalink, a new navigation system, multi-function displays, Raytheon AIM-120C and AIM-9X air-to-air missiles, and wind-corrected munitions dispensers. The navigation system will use inertial measurement and GPS.
The problem with five-year plans is that they come around only once every five years. That can be a long time in commercial aviation. As available production slots for reengined Airbus and Boeing narrowbodies move rapidly to the right, China is under pressure to set aside its usual stately planning process and hurriedly sign a round of big airliner orders.
