By Mike Yeo
What was once a modest air defense exercise continues to grow in scale.
For three weeks in August, the skies over Northern Australia – known here as the Top End – reverberated to the roar of military jet engines as the biennial Exercise Pitch Black was staged out of Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Bases Darwin and Tindal; the two main military airports in Australia’s Northern Territory.
This year’s exercise, held between August 1 and 22, saw up to 110 aircraft and more than 2,300 personnel from seven countries taking part. Host Australia was joined by aircraft of Pitch Black regulars the United States, Singapore and Thailand, while the United Arab Emirates and French also sent flying contingents and New Zealand contributed ground support personnel.
Named after the moonless nights in the sparsely populated region, Exercise Pitch Black has grown from a small-scale air defense exercise between host Australia, the U.S. and Singapore when it began in the late 1980s into a complex, multinational wargame considered by the RAAF to be its premier air combat exercise. Encompassing a full spectrum of scenarios that make up modern air warfare, participating air forces use the opportunity to provide realistic, high-end air combat training for their air crew, while at the same time building and cementing professional and personal friendships among the participants.
The main draw of the Northern Territory for such an exercise is the vast expanses of airspace with few flying restrictions and the world-class facilities that make up the Delamere Air Weapons Range and Bradshaw Field Training Area. In the words of RAAF Group Captain Micka Gray, Exercise Director of Pitch Black 2014, “We have very few limitations to where we can fly in the Northern Territory.” Coupled with the excellent weather for flying during the Northern Territory’s dry season, the exercise makes for a very attractive proposition to international participants like Thailand and particularly land-scarce Singapore, both of which lack that kind of airspace or favorable weather at home.
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