Stationed onboard frigate HMAS Warramunga, the MH-60 Romeo helicopter from 725 Squadron is part of 18 aircraft from navies from across the Asia Pacific which took part in the exercise off northern Australia.

The joint-enabled, biennial exercise is hosted by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and supported by the Royal Australian Air Force.

Kakadu is the navy’s premier maritime exercise, developing interoperability between nations in the maritime and air domains, and providing training opportunities for maritime security and surveillance.

Kakadu started on September 12 and will wrapped 12 days later, finishing on Saturday.

The exercise involved 19 ships and submarines, 19 aircraft and more than 3000 personnel from 19 Asia Pacific and Indian Ocean navies and air forces.

Participating nations include Australia, Canada, Fiji, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Timor Leste, Tonga, United States of America, and Vietnam.

The crew from Warramunga undertook a variety of tasks during the exercise, including hunting submarines by moonlight to engaging and defeating surface and air targets by day.

The exercise was extremely beneficial for the helicopter crew, with Australia deploying its new generation anti-submarine hunters, the MH-60R Seahawk Romeo helicopters with dipping sonar.

During the sea phase of Kakadu, ships and aircraft from nine navies trained together in several complex warfighting scenarios, including an air defence exercise, gunnery exercise, search and rescue training, replenishment approaches, anti-submarine warfare vulnerability training and divisional tactics.

Prior to the sea phase, a harbor phase allowed participants to conduct planning and simulation before heading to see to execute each scenario.

The exercises began in 1993, but this is the first time assets from the US Navy have participated.