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A joint military training exercise led by the New Hampshire National Guard will take over the former Loring Air Force Base in Limestone for six days starting this Sunday.
More than a dozen units will participate in Operation Northern Phoenix, an exercise intended to show the ability of the U.S. Air Force to rapidly deploy and establish landing zone operations at airfields in hostile environments, according to a redacted presentation provided to supporting civilian organizations.
The event is the second in five years of planned training exercises at Loring, the first large-scale military operations on the base since it closed in 1994. The 260th Combat Airfield Operations Squadron, based at Pease Air National Guard Base in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, is hosting the program.
Several other Air National Guard units from Maine and New Hampshire are also set to participate, along with units from New York, Connecticut and Kentucky, Vermont’s 134th Fighter Squadron — nicknamed the Green Mountain Boys — and the 69th Bomb Squadron, which flies B-52 Stratofortress bombers.
“We’re talking C-130s and multiple helicopter incursions … F-18 fighter jets, there is an armored convoy unit that’s coming to stage an ambush, there’s a security platoon coming to do building clearing and tactical rescue and search,” said Jonathan Judkins, CEO of the Loring Development Authority — the quasi-governmental cooperation that oversees the former base. “It’s pretty exciting.”
In the more than three decades since Loring closed, efforts to commercialize the longest runway in Maine and the thousands of acres of land and buildings that surround it have moved slowly.
But that trend has started to reverse in recent years, in part because of Northern Phoenix.
A global aerospace company that retrofits wide-body passenger aircraft moved into the base’s most recognizable building — a more than 100,000-square foot arch hangar — last summer because of the attention brought by the training exercises. The company, Kansas City-headquartered Aero Intelligence, signed a 20-year lease worth $5.4 million that covers a full restoration of the historic hangar.
Green 4 Maine, a redevelopment company that purchased roughly 450 acres of the former base in 2023, has also brought in a handful of tenants into long-unoccupied buildings, with more on the way. And the construction of a $65 million potato chip factory at the site is expected to be completed this year.
“This proves to the world that Loring is not just a mothballed runway,” Judkins said. “It’s a viable training resource for multiple different military units as well as local law enforcement.”
The operation will begin on Sunday with a helicopter infiltration to establish a landing zone before the 123rd Contingency Response Group flies in equipment to support larger operations, according to a timeline laid out in the presentation.
The 69th Bomb Squadron is set to arrive on Monday. Other significant military aircraft set to play a role in the training include the KC-135 Stratotanker, KC-46 Pegasus and C-12 Huron. At least one military VIP is scheduled to be part of the operations on June 10, though the presentation does not specify how many will be present or who they are, and representatives for the New Hampshire National Guard did not respond to a request for additional information.
The training exercises will also assess the military value of the Expeditionary Transponder Landing System, a new system designed by the defense contractor Advanced Navigation and Positioning Corporation that combines several ground-based aircraft guidance and radar systems.
The runway, taxiways, airfield operational areas, and other zones of the former base are closed to unauthorized personnel and will be strictly monitored over the course of Northern Phoenix. The LDA has installed camera surveillance systems in those areas, and will use vehicle/license plate monitoring, it said.
“This opportunity will provide the 260th CAOS, 157th [Air Refueling Wing] and the Air Force as a whole an invaluable training site and opportunity,” the New Hampshire National Guard wrote in a summary of the operation.