Singapore Air Force takes part in multinational air combat exercise Pitch Black in Australia
July 23, 2024
DARWIN – A total of 140 aircraft and more than 4,400 personnel from 20 countries have gathered in northern Australia for Exercise Pitch Black, a multinational air combat exercise that takes place every two years.
The Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) has sent 450 personnel to Australia for the 2024 edition of the exercise, which makes it one of the largest foreign contingents after host Australia.
RSAF assets taking part in the exercise comprise four F-15SGs, six F-16C/Ds, one G550 Airborne Early Warning aircraft, and one A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) aircraft.
The air force has also sent some of its ground-based air defence systems, with its Shikra radar, Multi-Mission Radar, Aster 30 and Spyder systems also participating in this year’s exercise.
The RSAF contingent is led by exercise director Colonel (COL) Lee Mei Yi, who said Singapore’s participation is important as it enhances the air force’s interoperability with international partners while honing its operational competencies.
The RSAF’s interactions with participating F-35s there would also help it better understand operations with the stealth fighter ahead of flying its own F-35As and F-35Bs, said Col Lee, the Republic’s first female exercise director at Exercise Pitch Black.
The Republic is expected to take delivery of its first four F-35Bs in 2026, Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said at his ministry’s Budget in February 2024.
Dr Ng also announced then that Singapore will acquire eight F-35A fighters, which will complement the dozen F-35Bs it had ordered earlier from the fifth-generation stealth plane’s maker, Lockheed Martin.
This year’s exercise, the largest in Pitch Black’s 43-year history, will involve F-35As flown by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), as well as F-35As and F-35Bs from Italy’s Air Force and Navy.
The three-week long, multi-country exercise provides a realistic and challenging training environment for participating air forces to work together against simulated threats in scenarios such as air-to-air combat, air-to-ground combat, as well as surveillance and reconnaissance missions in both day and night conditions, said Mindef in a statement.
Delicate aerial ballet
As part of a media contingent, The Straits Times was onboard an RSAF A330 MRTT mission that flew out of Queensland in Western Australia at 5.30am on July 22, bound for the exercise airspace in Darwin, the capital of Australia’s Northern Territory.
Most of the RSAF’s air assets participating at Pitch Black are based in Darwin, except for the A330 MRTT, which along with other visiting tanker aircraft from France, the United Kingdom and Italy, are based in Queensland.
Enroute, four RAAF F/A-18F Super Hornet multirole fighters that were also bound for Exercise Pitch Black took turns taking fuel from the A330, two at a time.
Flying seemingly within touching distance, the procedure was akin to a tightly choreographed and delicate aerial ballet.
The RSAF tanker then landed just before noon, with another set of crew – consisting of two pilots and an air refuelling operator – then taking the aircraft back to Queensland in the evening.
Lieutenant (LTA) Hanson Lim, an A330 MRTT pilot with the RSAF’s 112 Squadron, said the exercise is valuable for allowing him to train in airspace ten times the size of Singapore, and the rare opportunity to refuel aircraft of partner nations such as F-35s and France’s Rafale fighters.
LTA Lim, who has been flying the A330 MRTT for four years, told reporters the squadron brought five sets of crew to the exercise to ensure that personnel have enough rest between missions, and to enable the squadron to maintain a high tempo of missions for the exercise.
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