When Lt. Col. Tyler G. Blake of Boothbay retired from the Maine Air National Guard in June 2016 after 25 years of service, that did not end his love for flying.  In fact, he has made an orderly transition from military service to flying commercial aircraft for American Airlines, the parallel careers having overlapped for the past 15 years.

“I had always been interested in flying,” said Blake, a 1987 graduate of Boothbay Region High School.

Having obtained a degree in business administration from Husson College in 1991, he entertained recruiters from the Maine Air National Guard and the United States Air Force. He chose the former.

“I wanted to stay home in Maine,” said Blake.

Although much of his service time was based in Maine, he also found himself traveling from Japan to the Middle East, often to the world’s hot spots, albeit 20,000 feet in the air, servicing cargo planes, bombers and fighter jets while piloting a KC135 refueling aircraft.

Blake said refueling military aircraft midair requires a great deal of planning, coordination and skill. “It is quite a process.’

Especially during wartime, military aircraft need to be transported back and forth from areas of conflict to home bases either for maintenance or to carry out military objectives abroad. Many missions involved meeting heavily laden cargo planes over the Western Atlantic from his base in Bangor. Even attack flights from European bases to areas such as Kosovo in the late 1990s required refueling to carry out the mission and return to base safely.

That can be a nervous process if the receiving aircraft is low on fuel and at risk of landing in the middle of conflicted air space, he said. During active conflict, as many as five refueling aircraft could be servicing three fighters each circling in a tight orbit in the same air space.

During the conflict in Kosovo in 1999, that meant dealing with harassing MIG fighters that had to be chased away by the jets waiting to be refueled. “You want to get out of there,” he said.

When they were called upon to support aircraft enforcing no fly zones in the Mideast, that could mean a total of 30 to 40 aircraft flights each day, said Blake.

Although he and his wife Lynn spent his early career living close to the base in Bangor, the couple moved back to Boothbay in 2004.

From 2005 to 2015, Blake recommitted the majority of his time to active service, which meant a regular two-hour commute to Bangor. During that decade much of his duty evolved to instruction, program design and administrative tasks. He did return to the Middle East in the fall of 2011 and 2014, flying missions from a base in Qatar.

Blake’s retirement has meant less stress, although he remains as busy as ever. He flies out of Boston with American Airlines in blocks of three days at a time. He is then home for rest and family activities with his wife and daughter Sydney. When he has a chance, he takes out his boat from the family-operated Blake’s Boatyard in Boothbay Harbor. The Blakes will snowbird this winter in Stuart, Florida. He will fly out of Miami until the family returns next summer.

During his retirement ceremony on June 24,  Lt. Col. Blake was presented with a USAF retirement certificate, a Distinguished Service Plaque, a retirement flag, and several gifts. His extended family was in attendance along with top military brass.