Well exercised

PITCH Black continues a high period of exercise activity for Air Force this year. This has included Jabiru, Arnhem Thunder, Northern Challenge, Aces South and Aces North and RIMPAC.

PB04 is the largest of these and the largest exercise for 2004, but it is not the largest exercise Air Force has conducted. That honour goes to an earlier Pitch Black.

What has been unusual this year is the alignment of so many activities over such a relatively short period of time, on top of the ongoing operational tempo.

This exercise tempo has proved that RAAF Bases Darwin and Tindal are ideal to support this level of activity.

The enormous airspace and weather reliability/ predictability are the primary reasons, while the deployment of 16AD Regiment on the new railway line has demonstrated that logistics support will be enhanced in the future.

The high rate of effort has had an added advantage as support for those earlier activities means fuel and other items were already stockpiled in place before the exercise started, which reduced a need for a rapid build up in advance of the exercise.

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