✈️ Exercise Pitch Black 26 is taking flight.
1 Video View·Aug 22, 2026
More than 100 aircraft and personnel from 19 partner nations have so far converged on RAAF Bases Darwin and Tindal for three weeks of complex, multinational air combat training designed to build readiness, interoperability and coalition partnerships.
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Pitch Black is an excellent opportunity to understand and get to know professionally
our regional partners. It is an excellent opportunity for the aviators to display
their expertise on the world stage. We learn a lot from the other Air Force as well which
improves us. What it does then is allows us to understand how we work together in peacetime and
training operations so that if required we're effective and lethal if we need to go to combat
together. The Air Force is one element of the Australian Defence Forces arsenal and it's very
important that the roles that are dedicated towards the Air Force are conducted with
professionalism and with expertise. So continual training of the forces allows us to ensure that
we are ready at a moment's notice should someone threaten Australia's security. It's all about the
defence of the nation and I am continually impressed with the expertise of all our
regional partners which is comforting in the deteriorating global environment that they are
friends.