FARMINGTON – F-15 jet pilots from the Massachusetts Air National Guard need low-level flight training over Western Maine in order to defend the nation’s borders against attacks by small airplanes and cruise missiles, Brig. Gen. Leon Rice told residents Tuesday night at a hearing.

Officers of Otis Air National Guard in Falmouth, Mass., are requesting the flight ceiling be dropped from 2,800 feet to 500 feet in the Condor Military Operation Area above Franklin, Oxford and Somerset counties.

For decades, F-15 Eagle pilots from the 102nd Fighter Wing on Cape Cod and F-16 Fighting Falcon pilots from the 158th Fighter Wing in Burlington, Vt., have used the airspace above Western Maine for maneuvers and pretend dogfights. The F-15 pilots train for air-to-air combat.

The proposal would allow both groups to fly low across an area bordered roughly from Greenville southwest to Sumner, west to Bethel, north along the Canadian border and east to Greenville.

The goal, according to Rice, is to reduce the amount of time pilots fly at low altitudes and give them better intercept training.

Terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, he said, revealed a weakness in the military’s ability to defend the country’s borders from a low-altitude attack by a small airplane or cruise missile.

“We figured out we can’t do 100 percent of our training at medium or high level altitudes,” he added.

The proposal calls for intercept training where F15 pilots flying at heights of about 7,000 feet would drop down to 500 feet to find and intercept a target before soaring back to higher altitudes. Air training is being done now at heights below 3,000 feet for 30 minutes, he said. The proposal would drop the low flights to 10 minutes out of a 30-minute run, he added.

Rice also explained that Western Maine flight corridor provides an area 60 miles by 100 miles that is better than those in New Hampshire and New York.

Some among the small group of residents at the fifth and final hearing on the proposal again asked for a full environmental impact study and questioned the need to drop the ceiling.

State Rep. Tom Saviello, U-Wilton, said he agreed with Gov. John Baldacci calling for such a study.

Rice said the military doesn’t need permission from state officials but has worked to include them in the plans.

Guy Griscom of Avon told Rice, “The people here are not against the military but get their dander up when things are being withheld.”

Rice had previously explained that the military was not trying to withhold information.

The economic impact was another major concern raised by residents. The revisions to the first impact study do not address the impact on the economy and eco-tourism, Emily Ecker said.

The impact on local airports and the potential for problems with the military using a larger air space for training were raised by Nancy O’Toole of Phillips, an environmental engineer who questioned the military’s “see and avoid” visual flight rules.

The military hopes to file the proposal with the FAA next spring, Rice said.