Fairbanks - Hear that?

If it sounds like a sonic boom, it could be coming from the fighter jets that will be blasting across Interior Alaska during the next couple of weeks.

Eielson Air Force Base, which sits just southeast of North Pole, periodically hosts training exercises and invites military forces from outside the Fairbanks area to join. Some involve joint training with military forces from other countries.

One of those exercises - dubbed Red Flag-Alaska - will stretch throughout the next few weeks. The domestic, "all-American" training will let fighter pilots from Eielson and Anchorage's Elmendorf Air Force Base team up to simulate combat situations.

"You get to use all the plays in the playbook. No holds barred," Air Force spokesman Lt. Frank Hartnett said of the difference between all-domestic and international training exercise. The Air Force previously hosted airmen from countries including Germany, Japan and South Korea in recent exercises.

The training will run through Oct. 17. It will be limited to a 45-minute stretch beginning at 10 a.m. and a 75-minute stretch starting at 3 p.m. on weekdays. It will halt during the weekends.

Pilots involved in the training routinely produce sonic booms from their respective jets - a mix, this time, of F-15s, F-16s and F-22s. A record-number of Fairbanks-area residents complained in April during a similar training exercise that month, something Air Force officials have said prompted them to get the word out in advance of future exercises.

"We want to be good neighbors," Hartnett said.

The Air Force invited residents looking to file noise complaints during the next few weeks to call Eielson's public affairs office at 377-2116.