Five European nations joined the Pitch Black 2024 air force exercise from 12 July till 2 August, the continent’s largest ever presence Down Under. France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK all despatched aircraft to this biennial exercise centred upon Australia’s Northern Territory.
Unfortunately, a European air force departed with one less aircraft than with which it arrived, after an Italian F-2000 Eurofighter crashed, fortunately without fatality, on 24 July.
Collectively, these five European nations contributed around a third of the aircraft participating in Pitch Black 2024. They included Rafale, AV-8, Eurofighter, F-35A and F-35B fighters, as well as MRTT tankers, A400M transport aircraft and an Italian E550 airborne early warning aircraft.
France, Germany and Spain were jointly performing a deployment called Pacific Skies, which ambitiously encompassed exercises in five locales: Alaska, Hawaii, Japan, Australia and India.
This was the 20th year in which France had joined Pitch Black, and the Australian leg formed part of its Pegase mission “that aims to strengthen operational readiness with France’s partners and allies in the Indo-Pacific, where it has military bases in New Caledonia and French Polynesia”.
Pierre-André Imbert, France’s Ambassador to Australia, told Asian Military Review about the importance of the training: “It’s very important, and so we have different exercises to be sure that we can interoperate and to be ready to assist each other.”
Imbert said Pegase was “particularly complex,” because it saw one detachment deploy east and another west from France, with both eventually marrying up in Australia.
Pursuant to France’s Indo-Pacific strategy announced in 2018, Imbert added, “That’s why it’s very key for us to ensure freedom of navigation to have access to the commons and to demonstrate that we’re ready to come and to be here very quickly, to participate with our allies and to defend our territories and also our friends.”
This was Germany’s second deployment to Australia, with Lieutenant Colonel Fabian Schroppe, the Luftwaffe’s deputy detachment commander, explaining: “It’s the largest and broadest project and deployment the German Luftwaffe has ever done. Our main goal is we want to improve and enhance our capabilities in terms of strategic deployment all around the world.”
Deploying five Eurofighters and two A400Ms, Lt Col Schroppe elaborated: “We want to get a common understanding of how others train in order to enhance our interoperability skills in the training environment, and to be able to react flexibly and succeed together in a highly dynamic setting, both day and night, air to ground and air to air.”
Exercise Pitch Black 2024 involved more than 140 aircraft and 4,435 personnel from 20 nations.
by Gordon Arthur
