Exercise Pitch Black 26 Brings India Back to Australian Skies as 19-Nation Air Combat Exercise Gears Up at RAAF Darwin

Exercise Pitch Black 26 will see India fly alongside 18 allied and partner nations at RAAF Base Darwin from 20 July to 7 August, the Royal Australian Air Force has confirmed, as Australia prepares to host its largest international air exercise. Australian High Commissioner to India Philip Green OAM announced India's participation on X on 16 June, tagging the Indian Air Force's official handle and citing the exercise as an opportunity to strengthen regional interoperability across the Indo-Pacific.

The exercise runs for three weeks over one of the world's largest military training areas, with complex, combat-like scenarios planned across both day and night flying periods. More than 100 aircraft and personnel from 19 nations will participate.

The full list of participating countries is Brunei, Canada, Fiji, Finland, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. For India, it marks a continuation of what has become a well-established pattern of engagement with the RAAF's premier biennial exercise, an involvement stretching back to 2018 when the Indian Air Force first sent fighter aircraft to Darwin.

Exercise Pitch Black 26: Format and Scale

Pitch Black is built around Large Force Employment warfare. The concept demands complex, coordinated missions involving large packages of aircraft operating simultaneously, placing a premium on interoperability, communications discipline, and the ability to integrate disparate platforms under a single tactical picture. For air forces accustomed to working within their own national doctrines, operating in that environment requires sustained exposure. Three weeks gives participating contingents enough time to move through integration training, build shared procedures, and then execute the high-intensity missions the exercise is designed around.

The name has an origin that still shapes how the exercise is planned. Pitch Black was conceived around night-time flying over the Northern Territory's vast, unpopulated stretches. That emphasis, over terrain where navigation aids are sparse and the margin for error is compressed, remains central to the training value. RAAF Base Darwin and RAAF Base Tindal are the primary operating locations. Darwin handles the bulk of the fighter activity. Tindal, in the Katherine region roughly 300 kilometres south-east, adds range and dispersal depth to what participating air forces can train across.

Exercise Commander Air Commodore Matt McCormack said Exercise Pitch Black 26 is vital for the preparedness and collective security of both Australia and the region. Training together in complex scenarios, he said, enhances shared preparedness and the ability to operate collectively while demonstrating commitment to maintaining regional stability.

Two community events will run alongside the exercise. The Mindil Beach Flying Display on 23 July runs from 5pm to 6:30pm as a free, non-ticketed event, giving Darwin residents and visitors a chance to see participating aircraft. The RAAF Darwin Open Day on 1 August follows, with pre-booked tickets via TryBooking required for entry. Head of Air Shows Air Commodore Micka Gray said both events have been fixtures on the exercise calendar since 2012 and allow participants to showcase capability to the Northern Territory community.

India's Track Record at Pitch Black

2018: First Fighters, Several Firsts in the Air

The IAF's first appearance at Pitch Black came in 2018. It was not a token deployment. The contingent of 145 air warriors included four Su-30MKI fighters, a C-130 and a C-17 for logistics, plus a team of Garud commandos. During that edition, an Su-30MKI crew completed an air-to-air refuelling from a RAAF KC-30A tanker for the first time. IAF pilots flew exchange sorties in French Rafales. RAAF and French aircrew flew the Su-30MKI. The integration reached into transport operations too, with IAF C-130J crews flying in their RAAF counterparts' aircraft and conducting assault landings at Dalmare during Large Force Engagement missions, by day and by night.

That debut established the IAF as a credible Pitch Black participant. The professionalism of the contingent across pilots, technicians and air warriors drew specific praise from partner nations.

Pitch Black 2022 brought the IAF back after the pandemic-enforced hiatus. Four Su-30MKIs and two C-17s, over 100 air warriors, multi-aircraft combat drills by day and night in complex aerial scenarios involving large formations. Germany, Japan and the Republic of Korea participated fully for the first time that year, widening the field that Indian pilots were operating within.

The 2024 edition was the largest in the exercise's 43-year history. Twenty nations, over 140 aircraft, 4,400 military personnel. India sent a contingent of over 150 air warriors, deploying Su-30MKI multirole fighters alongside C-17 Globemasters and IL-78 air-to-air refuelling aircraft in combat-enabling roles. The contingent transited through Indonesia on the way south, a long-range deployment requiring coordinated tanking, maintenance support and diplomatic clearances through multiple airspaces. The Su-30MKI flew alongside F-35s, F-22s, Gripens, Typhoons and Super Hornets, a coalition mix that any realistic large-force planning scenario for the Indo-Pacific would need to account for.

The Bilateral and Regional Context

India's defence relationship with Australia has moved quickly. The two countries elevated bilateral ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2020, and since then joint exercises across domains have multiplied. Pitch Black sits within a broader pattern that now extends to maritime exercises, ground force activities and high-level defence dialogue. For the IAF, it has become one of the anchor activities in the overseas engagement calendar, alongside exercises with France, the United States, Japan and others.

The participating nation list for Pitch Black 26 covers most of the major air power players in the Indo-Pacific region, along with European partners who have established long-range deployment credentials across multiple editions. What the exercise tests, beneath the headline numbers, is whether these forces can operate at scale in a contested, complex environment. That is precisely what the strategic calculus in the Indo-Pacific demands of any air force that wants to be counted in regional security arrangements. India has made clear, through consistent participation, that the IAF intends to be counted.

Exercise Pitch Black 26 and IAF Interoperability Gains

The interoperability gains from repeated Pitch Black participation are practical, not theoretical. Exchange sorties between IAF pilots and counterparts flying Rafales and Hornets happened as far back as 2018. Flying an unfamiliar platform in a live exercise environment, with different avionics, different handling characteristics and different crew procedures, produces a quality of mutual understanding that no briefing room exercise replicates. It also gives RAAF and partner nation crews direct experience of the Su-30MKI, one of the most capable multirole fighters in the region and the IAF's primary frontline aircraft as the Rafale fleet expands under the 114-aircraft deal framework.

The logistics side is equally instructive. Deploying a fighter contingent from India to Darwin, transiting through Indonesian airspace with tanker support, maintaining aircraft in a remote location over three weeks, then recovering the force home. That is a genuine expeditionary capability test. The IAF has cleared it across three consecutive editions.

The IL-78's role in enabling long-range fighter deployments is something the 2024 participation demonstrated in practice. Getting Su-30MKIs from India to Darwin without ferry stops requires coordinated tanking over extended ocean legs. That the IAF has accomplished it repeatedly, and that the RAAF has facilitated the integration each time, reflects the operational depth of the bilateral working relationship at the force-to-force level.

Exercise Pitch Black 26 opens on 20 July. It closes on 7 August. India will be there.