A New Addiction
“Faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death”
— Hunter S. Thompson
In the northeast corner of the state of Maine, just outside the small town of Caribou, lies what remains of the Loring Air Force Base. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the closing of the base in 1994. But from 1950 to then the base was a significant component of the U.S. Strategic Air Command. The base was in constant airborne alert with a formidable fleet of B-52s. For a time the base was the largest nuclear weapons and fuel storage facility in the U.S. A community unto itself, Loring Air Force Base employed up to 3,800 military personnel and 1,000 civilians. As America’s closest base to Europe, there were more than 1,700 war plane landings here en route to Desert Storm in the 1990s. Today, the Loring Development Authority works diligently to redevelop the facility as a commerce centre in a region devastated by the military’s withdrawal.
One prominent feature of the aging and forgotten base is the runway. Built by and once the pride of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, it remains in pristine condition. The strip is a beast at 3,690 metres long and 90 metres wide and it’s about as smooth today as on the day
