Exercise Pitch Black 2026 has moved into its flying phase at Royal Australian Air Force Base Darwin, with Indian Air Force Rafale fighters now airborne alongside air forces from 20 nations. The Indian contingent arrived at Darwin earlier this month and has since joined the massed, multi-nation air packages that the drill in northern Australia is built to run.

Exercise Pitch Black 2026 flying gets under way over Darwin

The Indian Air Force says its warriors are actively engaged in the drills, flying the Rafale multirole fighter in the large force employment missions that define Pitch Black. The jets are supported by the C-17 Globemaster III and the IL-78 air-to-air refuelling aircraft in combat enabling roles, the mix the IAF took to Darwin for this edition. Working inside a live multinational package is what Exercise Pitch Black 2026 offers the Indian side.

The contingent was built around four Rafale fighters and two C-17 transports, flown out with more than 120 air warriors, among them pilots, engineers, technicians and controllers. India has framed the deployment as a chance to validate expeditionary air operations over long distances while working directly with friendly foreign air forces.

Pitch Black runs from 20 July to 7 August across RAAF Bases Darwin and Tindal in the Northern Territory and RAAF Base Amberley in Queensland, with up to 100 jets and more than 2,500 personnel taking part. For the IAF, the worth of the trip lies in flying its Rafale fleet against and beside a wide spread of foreign types over one of the largest training airspaces anywhere.

A Rafale flypast over Mindil Beach

The IAF put a Rafale through a flypast over Darwin's Mindil Beach, which it described as marking the opening of the exercise. The Mindil Beach Flying Display, held on 23 July, is the RAAF's traditional free community event, the moment the Darwin public gets to watch participating aircraft work the air along the waterfront.

Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese formally opened Pitch Black 2026 in Darwin on 20 July. The display three days later carried the exercise into public view, and the Rafale's pass over the beach was the Indian contribution to it.


Refuelling across the multinational package

Interoperability at Darwin is not only a matter of holding formation. The Royal Australian Air Force reported that one of its KC-30A tankers passed fuel in the air to Indian Rafales, along with RAAF Super Hornets, Republic of Korea Air Force F-15Ks and German Eurofighter Typhoons.

Taking fuel from another nation's tanker is a hard, practical test of whether crews, aircraft and procedures actually mesh. The IAF flies its own IL-78 to these deployments, so a Rafale plugging into an Australian KC-30A shows the two air forces can hand a core enabling task between them. Australia's Department of Defence counts air-to-air refuelling among the supporting capabilities the exercise rehearses, together with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and both strategic and tactical airlift.

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The exercise, and India's Darwin record

Pitch Black is biennial and takes its name from the emphasis on night flying over the sparsely populated country of northern Australia. This year's edition is one of the largest in the exercise's 45-year history, pulling air forces from across the Indo-Pacific and Europe into one training environment. The Royal Australian Air Force runs it as its most demanding international activity.

India is a regular here. The IAF flew in the 2018, 2022 and 2024 editions, and the return this year continues a steady run. It also lands in a busy season of Indian participation in multinational drills, close on the heels of the Navy's turn at RIMPAC 2026 in the Pacific.

The flying grows more complex as the three weeks run on, with missions built up inside the Northern Territory's military airspace. A second free community event, the RAAF Base Darwin Open Day, follows on 1 August before the exercise closes on 7 August.

Debut jets and first-time participants

This is the first time the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force has brought its F-35 Lightning II to Pitch Black, and the first showing of Indonesia's T-50I Golden Eagle. Finland and Sweden are taking part with embedded personnel for the first time. Sharing airspace with that spread, from fifth-generation fighters to light combat jets, is the reason the IAF makes the long transit to Darwin. Its Rafales reached Australia after mid-air refuelling over Indonesian airspace, flown from Surabaya with Indonesian government clearance.

Gold in the tournament football

Off the flight line, the Indian Air Force contingent won Gold in the exercise's multinational football tournament. The result sits next to the flying as part of the ground-level exchange between contingents, the informal side of an event where 20 air forces share a base for three weeks.