THE AUSTRALIAN Air Force’s largest and most complex air exercise has kicked off in Territory skies this week.
Exercise Pitch Black 12 started on Monday and until August 17 RAAF members and international participants - including the United States Marine Corps, the Republic of Singapore Air Force, Royal Thai Air Force, and Royal New Zealand Air Force, and the Indonesian Air Force - are set to take to the skies between Darwin and Katherine.
During the three weeks of the exercise US and RAAF aircraft will operate from RAAF Tindal including FA-18A and FA-18C, Wedgetail AEWC and refuelling aircraft.
The numbers of Australian and foriegn personnel based at Tindal will swell to over 1000.
The aim of this year’s Exercise Pitch Black is to exercise international forces in the planning and execution of large-scale Offensive Counter Air and Counter-Land operations in a coalition environment against a capable adversary force.
The first week of flying will feature two daylight missions per day for exercise participants.
This provides them with orientation of airspace around Darwin, Tindal and the training areas.
The second and third week will feature a daylight and night-time mission per weekday.