Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter jets and a Voyager air-to-air refuelling tanker are taking part in a major Australian air exercise for the first time.

Hosted by the Royal Australian Air Force, Exercise Pitch Black will see up to 100 aircraft and around 2500 personnel from 17 nations train together for three weeks.  The exercise is being conducted primarily from the RAAF bases at Darwin and Tindal in the Australian Northern Territory.

Air Vice-Marshal Phil Robinson, CBE, DFC** the Air Officer Commanding No 11 Group commenting on the exercise, was quoted as saying:

“An event such as Pitch Black is extremely important to the RAF as it tests the ability to deploy air power at speed to any part of the world, in addition to the valuable training opportunity with key partners and allies. The UK’s participation in such a significant exercise in the Indo Pacific highlights the importance placed on the region.  The complexity of this exercise has also given the planning staff at 11 Group, together with the RAF personnel at the various Embassies and High Commissions, the opportunity to demonstrate the RAF’s ability to project and deliver combat power in the Indo Pacific.”

The UK’s contribution to Exercise Pitch Black is designed to be a tangible demonstration of UK air power and highlights the UK’s ability to deploy rapidly at long range, say the RAF.

“It also illustrates the UK’s desire to build professionalism and enhance international military relationships for the safe and effective conduct of air operations with regional and partner nations. Participation on such exercises support the UK Government’s identification of the Indo-Pacific region as being critical to the UK’s economy, security, and global ambition to support open societies.  The RAF’s participation therefore is designed to deepen defence engagement in the region in support of shared prosperity and regional stability.”

Wing Commander Tim Brookes, the Air Adviser at the British High Commission Canberra said:

“I am delighted Typhoon and Voyager are here in Australia for Exercise Pitch Black. This is an exceptional opportunity to train with our partners and Allies in the Indo-Pacific region and underlines the strong history and shared values the RAF shares with the RAAF.”

The first week of the exercise comprised fighter integration training designed to improve interoperability ahead of more complex and collaborative training in the second week. Throughout the exercise the Voyager will refuel fast jets from other participating nations. Once the exercise concludes the RAF contingent will be returning to the UK via India where during a short stop over it is planned to conduct a brief period of Bilateral training with the Indian Air Force.

Exercise participants include Australia, UK, Indonesia, India, Singapore, Japan, Republic of Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, UAE, Canada, Netherlands, Malaysia, New Zealand, France, Germany, and the US.

Tom Dunlop
Tom Dunlop
Tom has spent the last 13 years working in the defence industry, specifically military and commercial shipbuilding. His work has taken him around Europe and the Far East, he is currently based in Scotland.

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40 COMMENTS

  1. Good to see them making use of the transit stops on the way back to conduct more training with India. Rumour is Typhoon may be back in the running to pip Rafale in India this may be part of the evaluation.

    • Actually it might be the other way around.

      The first Exercise Pitch Black was held here in Oz in the early 1980s, it’s grown and expanded significantly since then.

      Pitch Black the movie was made in 2000, and strangely enough it was filmed here in Oz too.

  3. I’ve got a question for the Poms here.

    We all know the RAF Voyager tankers don’t have a boom (not going to rehash that), but what I did want to ask is, do the Voyager tankers have the ability to be refuelled themselves by a boom equipped tanker?

    I know that RAAF KC-30A, RSAF A330 MRTT, etc, can ‘give and receive’ via boom (seen plenty of video showing that).

    But it appears from images I’ve seen of RAF Voyager aircraft that they don’t appear to have the required ‘receptacle’ above the cockpit.

    Is that accurate or not?

    Cheers,

    • The additional hosing for the Voyager to receive fuel from a boom was not removed as it would add cost to the program. So yes it’s still there and the aircraft could accept fuel but the crews are not trained in it.

      • Hopefully someone at the MOD is going to see sense and get the Voyager fleet modified with booms if that’s the case. Would make sense to be able to refuel our P-8’s and RC-135’s.

  4. It’s good to see them taking advantage of the stop off in India. I wonder if this is anything to do with the rumours of Typhoon tranche 5 being back in the running for Indian Airforce.

      • Well so long as the sellers understand India’s position and are fine with it I don’t see an issue.
        India will do what’s best for India first. Second they will want the made in India rules applied.
        Anymore than that I don’t know. India is a huge country with a huge population. Personally I don’t think they would go for typhoon aircraft. They would be better expanding the rafale numbers and getting tejas into service in larger numbers.
        As for 5/6th gen aircraft I don’t know what they are going to do.

        • They could have the F-35 if they hadn’t insisted on buying the S-400, which has turned out to be a typically overhyped Russian system which the US and Israelis quickly learned to counter.

        • Yeah. India’s position is very clear. As a result you wouldn’t trust them with any decent western tech. Similar to Turkey, despite them being in NATO

          • Agreed on India. Fortunately Rafale is more likely than Typhoon. Indian politicians are very fond of Macron and Dassault !!

      • India is a should be a natural ally of the UK. However, I I think Russia may have been making inroads regarding their propaganda efforts.

    • India maybe rethinking where to get their kit from these days, Russia not looking impressive after Ukraine invasion and China is India’s big worry I would think. Quite an amazing alliance of interested parties for pitch black.

        • Do you not believe anything that comes out of a westerners mouth and believe it’s only true if it comes from a dictator or one of there cronies mouths?
          Fourth reich😂😂😂 headed by a Jewish man😂😂😂. You need to get back to the doctor. Those crazy pills they gave you aren’t working. Total nut job.

        • I must have missed that on the news, I wasn’t aware that the Jewish Russian speaking president of Ukraine was establishing such a regime. However, as an unverified source on the internet you must of course be believed.

        • Agree. Which shows that the training, skill, determination are vital and therefore through training you acheive combat effect on the battlefield.
          Hence why Russia’s armed forces are performing rubbishly. Huge armed forces in numbers. Equipped with soviet era equipment supported by little to no training.

    • Don’t know where you heard these rumours but there has been absolutely no repeat no indication that the IAF is even remotely interested in the Typhoon. The Typhoon is just too expensive and India has decided to go domestic with its various iterations of Tejas. Granted India going domestic means 50-60% of the aircraft, including the engine, being of foreign origin but India has learned its lesson, finally, about relying on Soviet/Russian arms. In any event, India will insist that any foreign airplane manufacturer set up a production plant in India and India will insist that the foreign manufacturer assume liability for any planes manufactured in India. No Western airplane manufacturer in his right mind will assume that liability, even the French.

  6. I cannot hold back my feeling that the exclusion of China is inviting the BRICS PLUS to emerge on the other part of the world … on the other hand if China is included the possibility will be excluded. Asean feel there is no point to fight and if it does all of Asia inculding Australia will slow down and the top three will gain further. And worse the global currency might change hands. Cause development after the foregoing will stall the middle economy depending on the development of the biggest economy and guess who is that.. China. And the BRIC PLUS will be the key ..
    If Afganistan Vietnam Middle East wars lost by the West is an indication is a trend the tendency of the Tsiwan war is clearly not going to favour the West but the demise of the aggressor and on the other hand favour the business developer. Asean view favpur development.! We are anti warring. Please comsider cooperative development no point fighting
    No one wins .!

    Please keep your emotional feeling away and think carefully for your own future. Ukraine go to war with Russian and the debts to the west will be 30 to 50 years before they can settle. Britain just settled their ww2 debt last year …and lost their hagemon after ww2 inculding the global currency hagemon.
    Shame!

    • A pro Chinese version of JohninMK? Interesting!

      Vietnam was misjudged from the beginning and badly handled but as long as the USA was there the casualties were very one sided. By comparison they kicked the PLA’s arse when China invaded and are now far friendlier to the West than China.

      Iraq 2 was badly sold to the western public and after a very successful invasion they tore up their reconstruction plan and it all went sideways. I think this was because as committed Christians both Bush and Blair had a very misguided view of what democracy needs to actually work; And then they panicked.

      Given that the West is currently going through a very liberal phase Afganistan went as well as it could and was just thrown away by Trump’s political corruption. That is a longer term problem and we must watch for foreign money influencing policy and promoting corrupt politicians

      Trump and Brexit show we are all vulnerable.

      • IMF might be hammering UK
        Is it worth it?
        Told my friends to prep for the worse.
        Change of adminstration is happening …
        Wake up dude!

  8. Surely the very first conclusion from an exercise like this, is that the RAF RNFAA have too few aircraft to meet Great Britain’s global responsibilities.
    Should a global peer on peer alliance scale conflict breakout. It will do so in several theatres simultaneously. For arguments sake, lets consider a war responding to a first strike by a Chinese Communist Party/Russian Federation/Iranian/North Korea alliance. Plus some other nations forewarned/forearmed to take advantage of the situation. Such as Argentina, Cuba and rogue arab groups. Splitting the available opposing forces while exploiting weaknesses in the old western alliances.
    HM Forces will be spread very thin and have almost zero capacity to sustain losses. Not forgetting an inability to logistically support an all out global effort for more than a few weeks, days or possibly in some cases hours. We would be completely dependant on allies that may or may not share our reasons to fight.

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