Combat jets from 14 nations took to the skies over Australia’s Top End on Monday as Exercise Pitch Black 2024 got underway in earnest.
The first week of the exercise is focussed on affiliation training and the skies above Darwin will echo to the sound of waves of aircraft taking off and landing between 0730 and 1930.
The biennial Pitch Black series of exercises are the largest of their kind in the southern hemisphere and the Royal Australian Air Force’s premier air combat training event on home soil.
This year a total of 20 nations will take part in the three-week exercise, with 16 countries contributing aircraft. Around 140 aircraft and more than 4,000 personnel will participate in the event, which is held in the relatively empty skies of the Northern Territory.
Countries contributing fighter and support to the exercise this year include Australia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Brunei, Canada, Fiji and New Zealand also have personnel embedded within the teams working in Darwin and Tindal in the NT and at Amberley in Queensland.
Exercise Pitch Black will record several ‘firsts’, including the participation of the Italian Navy’s aircraft carrier ITS Cavour, with her embarked AV-8B Harrier and F-35B STOVL fighters. Cavour’s participation marks the first time an aircraft carrier has been dedicated to the series and, in other firsts, aircraft from the Italian, Spanish and the Philippines’, and the PNG Defence Force will take part for the first time.
“The quality of training we can provide down here and the air space we have, the weapons’ ranges we have, and the engagements we have forged across multiple nations is a shining example of how we build interoperability amongst our air forces — and more importantly it’s how we build our partnerships across countries,” Air Commodore Peter Robinson, Commander Air Combat Group and Officer Conducting PB24 commented.
“Exercise Pitch Black demonstrates the value of sustaining stability across the region.”
Pitch Black 2024 will run between 12 July and 2 August and ADM will cover the exercise in depth.