The prospect of fighter jets zipping across Western Maine skies at skyscraper height must make a hushed bank of mountaintop windmills sound pretty good, in comparison.

A long-time training area for pilots, northern Oxford, Franklin and Somerset counties are under scrutiny by the Air National Guard, whose pilots want to expand their training ability by dropping the ceiling from 2,800 to 500 feet, and abandoning rigid flight paths.

The jets, F-16s from Otis Air Force Base in Falmouth, Mass., would then fly only to avoid population centers and bald eagle nests. The former is probably much easier to accomplish than the latter, given the jets’ average cruising speed of 400 mph.

To some, the screech of F-16s is the sound of freedom, a mild wartime inconvenience. To others, it’s the squeal of unwelcome fingernails across the region’s economic blackboard, and a threat to fragile ecosystems, tourist trade, and quality of life.

Each opinion is valid. Pilots at Otis say they need training unavailable with established practices, given the omnipresent possibility of Iraq deployment. Residents, especially private pilots, are justifiably concerned with the safety issues raised by lower flight ceilings.

Jets promise to be much more noticeably intrusive than windmills, which would have faded into the scenery of Redington Pond Range and Black Nubble Mountain, if their construction were allowed. Decibally speaking, there’s few similarities between a screaming military jet, and a spinning wind turbine.

Except, apparently, equal ability to inspire loud talking. Review of the flight ceilings has potential to devolve into vociferous rhetoric and accusation, just like Redington and Black Nubble, and make what is likely a minor issue – the rules for infrequent military flights – into a major controversy.

It happened in the 1990s, when a proposal to lower ceilings to a treetop 300 feet was shot down. This upcoming debate, however, needs balanced debate, as arguments by proponents – wartime preparation and technology advancements – and opponents – concerns about life and safety – are equally sound.

But so were arguments for windmills and energy diversification, which, we’ve seen, can suffocate under an avalanche of doomsday predictions. Finding compromise for the low-level flights could be easy, perhaps as simple as instituting a sunset provision triggered by the conclusion of the Iraq war, or something similar.

Something should be reachable.

As long as acrimony is kept to a minimum.