Overview
- The Australian Defence Department announced Tuesday that Exercise Pitch Black 2026 will run July 20 through August 7 across the Northern Territory and Queensland with more than 100 aircraft from roughly 20 nations.
- The exercise will include forces from India and the United States among other partners, reflecting broad multinational participation for large-force air operations.
- Pitch Black focuses on complex, combat-like, night-time flying over vast unpopulated training areas to test tactics, air‑to‑air refuelling, heavy airlift coordination and large-force interoperability.
- Organizers confirmed public events in Darwin, including the Mindil Beach Flying Display on July 23 and the RAAF Darwin Open Day on August 1, giving communities face-to-face access to aircrew and aircraft.
- Raised in 1981 as a night-flying exercise, Pitch Black has evolved into a premier regional training event that in recent years has featured IAF Su-30MKI fighters, C-17 and IL-78 support aircraft and U.S. stealth fighters, and it is used to strengthen practical readiness and defence ties across the Indo-Pacific.