The international exercise Pitch Black 2024 starts tomorrow
organised by the Royal Australian Air Force (Raaf). The Air Force is participating for the first time in the training activity, at Darwin Air Base, from 12 July to 2 August 2024. At the end of Pitch Black 2024, Air Force aircraft and personnel will move to Misawa in Japan for the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (Jasdf) Rising Sun 2024.
As part of the Air Force's Indo-Pacific Air Campaign, joint training is also planned with the Navy through the embarkation of two Air Force F-35 Bs on the aircraft carrier Cavour, as part of a major organisational effort by the entire Defence branch.
The Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Gen. S.A. Luca Goretti, emphasised, during a meeting with all the personnel of the Indo-Pacific 2024 campaign, the importance of the campaign as "a new challenge, within the strategy that the Air Force has been developing for some years now, to strengthen its logistic projection capabilities and to be able to move, in a short time, from one point to another of the Earth, when necessary, to support the operational component of the Armed Force. The Indo-Pacific Air Campaign is part of this project, which has already seen recent redeployments to Japan with the F-35 and to Alaska for the Red Flag exercise. Now we are going to Australia for the Pitch Black, together with our colleagues in the Navy, in the sign of a strong friendship and collaboration that has been going on for some years now, and then to Japan for the Rising Sun 2024: and we do all this while always being able to ensure and maintain our commitments both nationally and with NATO. The defence industry is making a substantial quality leap and you are the proof of that.
Pitch Black 2024 is one of the most complex and realistic military air exercises in the Indo-Pacific region. Organised by the Royal Australian Air Force (Raaf), it involves a total of 20 nations (Italy, Australia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, UK, USA, Brunei, Canada, Fiji, New Zealand).
The Air Force's participation for the first time in the air campaign in the Indo-Pacific allows it to train its ability to deploy a large number of men and means (Large Force Element) in a short time and demonstrate, through effective adherence logistics, that it can operate with significant effects even at a long distance from Italy, to protect national interests.
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