Oregon Public Broadcasting

A large Air National Guard installation in Southern Oregon is sending its planes -- plus about 250 staffers east for summer. As April Baer reports.

Citizens of Lakeview have grown very familiar with the sound of F-15s flying over.

The planes are part of an Air National Guard's training program at Kingsley Field -- one of only two F-15 training units in the country.

With one thousand staffers, it's one of the larger employers in the Klamath Falls area.

Several kinds of F-15s were grounded in 2007,  because of safety concerns, and some wondered whether the planes and bases that maintained them had a future.

But now federal and military officials have announced plans to move the F-15s to Idaho in April, for a six- month stay, while the runway at Kingsley Field is re-paved.

Captain Lucas Ritter, with the Air National Guard says.

Capt. Lucas Ritter  "We are always planning that it's going to stay here, and hope that it does. I think this is a good sign that the FAA and the National Guard Bureau are putting the money in to renovate the runway."

The F-15s will still fly over Lakeview airspace during their summer vacation, but they'll be returning to a field near Boise, instead of west to Klamath County, at the end of each day.