"Minutes Not Hours:' New National Guard Facility to Boost Eastern MT Helicopter Operations

The Montana National Guard opened its doors to local officials, state legislators and the media on Monday, giving them a look at the soon-to-be-completed Billings Limited Army Aviation Support Facility.

Designed to expand the guard’s helicopter operations in Eastern Montana, construction on the $52 million facility began in fall 2024. Officials from Dick Anderson Construction, the project’s general contractor, estimated the facility would be dust-free in the coming weeks and would be turned over to the Guard in either late June or early July.

Lt. Col. Tom Figarelle, chief public affairs officer with the Montana National Guard, said they hoped to have the facility fully operational by early fall, following its turnover.

‘Minutes not hours’

In 2019, the Montana Department of Military Affairs entered an agreement to begin leasing hangar space from the Billings Flying Service, next to the Billings Logan-International Airport, to expand its helicopter operations to the eastern half of Montana.

Operations began out of the leased facility in spring of 2023, filling an existing coverage gap as the nearest guard facility equipped to handle helicopters was located hundreds of miles away in Helena.

“The additional aviation support to serve Eastern Montana is needed to improve coverage and availability for military training and emergency response, and to reduce costs by reducing flight time to Eastern Montana,” stated a 2022 National Guard environmental impact assessment of the facility.

Currently, the guard operates a small number of helicopters out of their leased-hangar space. Once in their new space, they expect to have space for six to eight helicopters, including UH-60 Black Hawks, CH-47 Chinooks and eventually two Bell MV-75s.

“The bigger space will mean more robust capabilities for the aviation support,” Figarelle said. “The National Guard is so enmeshed in Western Montana there hasn’t been the enduring presence this facility will provide. Now when Eastern Montana needs us, we respond in minutes not hours.”

Brig. Gen. Trenton Gibson, the adjutant general for the Montana National Guard, said during the presentation and site tour that helicopter takeoff paths were being designed away from nearby residential neighborhoods to address noise concerns from the public. Gibson also noted all takeoffs were under the supervision of the Billings airport’s flight control tower.

Billings Readiness Center

The new aviation support facility is only the first building of the larger planned Billings Readiness and Innovation Campus. Total cost estimates for the entire campus are around $75 million.

Following an initial presentation about construction progress of the aviation support facility, guard officials presented design plans for a new Billings Readiness Center.

Design officials said they did not have a concrete estimation of when construction would start on the new facility, but they did share they were nearing the 30% design phase, a key milestone in the design process.

Currently, Army National Guard units are headquartered at the Montana National Guard Armory on Gabel Road on Billings' West End. Once completed, Army National Guard units in Billings would be headquartered at the new readiness center on the Rims.

© 2026 the Billings Gazette (Billings, Mont.). Visit www.billingsgazette.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.