Before it became Orlando International Airport’s busy runways, this land hummed with the tension of the Cold War. From the 1950s to the 1970s, McCoy AFB was home to B-52 bombers and KC-135 tankers, always ready on alert. Imagine living in Orlando during that era—your neighbor might have been a pilot whose office was a nuclear-armed aircraft.
The base was named after Colonel Michael N. W. McCoy, a test pilot who tragically died in a 1957 crash. His legacy lives on in the very concrete that now handles million-dollar jets and holiday travelers. It’s a weird, wonderful juxtaposition: strategic deterrence turned into baggage claim.
From Runways to Revenue
When the base closed in 1975, the city faced a question: what do you do with a 2,000-acre military complex? The answer was genius. Orlando took that massive infrastructure—the long runways, the hangars, the control towers—and rebranded it as a commercial airport.
Today, you’re walking on history when you catch a flight to Cancun. The main terminal sits right where alert crews once scrambled. Fun fact: some of the original base housing became the Airport Lakes neighborhood, complete with streets named after military aircraft.
If you look closely near the airport’s south side, you can still see remnants of the old base. The Orlando Executive Airport (a smaller field nearby) was actually the base’s original auxiliary field. It still serves private jets and flight schools, keeping that aviator spirit alive.
