Gov. John Baldacci has formally notified the director of the Air National Guard that he will oppose a planned series of low-level training flights over western Maine. That message will be delivered by a staffer from the department of transportation tomorrow at a public hearing at the University of Maine at Farmington.

Under most circumstances, Gov. John Baldacci might be happy to welcome a group of visitors from Massachusetts to western Maine. But not if they are pilots from the 104th Fighter Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Air Guard flying F-15 fighter jets capable of flying more than 1,500 miles an hour.

"I'm deeply disappointed at the way the National Guard has handled this, and I don't think it bodes well in terms of working together and making sure that our citizens are not only informed, but protected," Baldacci says.

During the summer, Baldacci asked the top brass at Air National Guard headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, to postpone a planned public hearing on the impact of low-level flights over western Maine that were scheduled at the beginning of September. The governor sought a delay of six to nine months. The Guard granted him 60 days and the public will now have its say tomorrow at 2 p.m. at the University of Maine at Farmington.

The Condor Military Operating Area -- as the 4,000 square mile training region is called -- covers part of New Hampshire and includes the western Maine communities of Bethel, Rumford and Farmington. To simulate low-level combat scenarios, pilots would be allowed to fly as low as 500 feet. Baldacci says he's not particularly happy with the way the National Guard has failed to directly respond to those concerns about noise and safety -- particularly given Maine's long history with the Guard.

"Certainly Maine is committed to training and expertise," he says. "You know, we've got half of our National Guard that are now going to be deployed over to Iraq and Afghanistan. And we've lost lives, and families have suffered. And so we recognize that's part of our national mission. But at the same time, they have a responsibility to work with us and to be able to help give information and make sure that we're providing safety to our citizens and they haven't done it. That's why I'm coming out in opposition to this."

"The biggest factual thing is safety -- this is unsafe," says Tom Mauzaka, a retired Air Force colonel who lives in the western Maine town of Strong. A former navigator, Mauzaka says the entire Condor exercise targets western Maine because it's basically a cheap night out for the Massachusetts-based 104th Fighter Wing.

"They want to be able to come and do their training on one tank of gas and go back home to Springfield," he says. "And there are other places. I mean just last month, they took eight airplanes and 150 people out to Nulles Air force Base in Las Vegas to get training, and I'm telling you, to do that, they had to overfly half a dozen other places they could have done the same thing. These guys are shameless."

But Capt. Matthew Mutti, the Wing Executive Staff Officer for the 104th Fighter Wing says Maine's wooded and mountainous terrain offers essential combat training.

"The Condor air space is very important to us providing homeland defense in that it allows us an opportunity to practice air-to-air scenarios where our fighters and other fighters throughout the country can practice low-level interceptors routes, and by utilizing the air space appropriately and correctly, we'll try and decrease some of the impacts on the populace," Mutti says.

Public testimony from tomorrow's hearing will be included in the Guard's draft environmental impact statement on the exercise.