Billed as Australia’s premier air defence training exercise, the latest iteration of the Pitch Black series began in the vast and relatively empty skies of the Northern Territory last week.
Pitch Black 2026 sees 21 nations participating in the three-week exercise, with 13 of those deploying around 100 air combat and support aircraft to Darwin and Tindal in the NT, and to Amberley in Queensland.
“The whole purpose of Pitch Black is to provide tactical level training to our air crew and our ground crew, focused on improving skillsets,” Exercise Commander, Air Commodore Matt McCormack told ADM.
“The insurance policy of Defence is important and that requires constant training to make sure that our teams are ready at the drop of a hat. We wouldn’t expect a professional sporting team not to train and go straight to the grand final. The consequence of not being trained properly in a grand final is that we lose Australia’s bravest and young folk.”
While the exercise scenario isn’t aimed at a specific country, it involves many complexities, not least of which are the number of different aircraft playing out their missions within the training airspace. Such scenarios can involve up to 60 aircraft and although the common language of aviation is English, the number of different accents involved can add to the complexity of each event.
The result is a better understanding of how nations can work together safely and effectively when required to do so.
“What that does for us is it allows us to understand our security partners around the globe, understand their strengths and weaknesses, learn from that and then be able to work together sufficiently efficiently so that we are able to achieve the mission task,” AIRCDRE McCormack explained. “And, unfortunately, the reason we need to do that is so that should we have to work with one of these nations in the future for real, when lives are at risk, we understand that and it can be more effective.”
The first week of the exercise was dedicated to Force Integration Training (FIT) where the participating nations become used to operating with and against one another, as well as the procedures involved in entering and leaving the exercise airspace. For the following two weeks, this gives way to Large Force Employment (LFE) scenarios, which take place during the day and also at night.
“Force Integration Training allows everybody to warm up and understand the local procedures. So, the first week is only day flying, a morning wave and an afternoon wave. It allows everyone to understand the local procedures, get the Australian accent on the radios for both air traffic and battle management, learn how to brief and debrief and how slowly you need to talk or you don’t need to talk, but also understand and appreciate the capabilities of that particular weapons system,” AIRCDRE McCormack continued.
“So, for example, we have the Philippines with their FA-50 at the moment, which isn’t a regular participant down here. So, just understanding that in a small flight context, 1x1 or 4x4 to start with.
“It just warms everyone up, to make sure it’s safe. We have found in the past that going straight into the complexity with 50-60 fighters on Blue and 20-30 on Red (adversary) results in a whole bunch of safety issues, which we want to avoid.
“Weeks two and three are relatively similar in their scenarios, so that the opportunity is provided to see it a couple of times. It’s not an exact replica – in fact in week three the complexity through the mission scenario is a little bit more complex.”