McCoy Air Force Base
former United States Air Force base
McCoy AFB (1940–1947, 1951–1975) is a former U.S. Air Force installation located 10 miles (16 km) southeast of Orlando, Florida. It was a training base during World War II. From 1951 to 1975, it was a frontline Strategic Air Command (SAC) base during the Cold War and Vietnam War. It was Orlando's biggest employer and economic backbone prior to the opening of Walt Disney World in 1971.
With McCoy's closure as an active USAF facility in 1975, the site was redeveloped and is known today as Orlando International Airport, which continues to carry the base's original FAA LID airport code of MCO (i.e., McCoy) and ICAO airport code of KMCO.
Over the course of its existence, the installation had several names, including Orlando Army Air Field #2, Pinecastle Army Airfield, and Pinecastle Air Force Base.
History
McCoy Air Force Base was named for Colonel Michael Norman Wright McCoy (1905–1957) on 7 May 1958. Seven months earlier on 9 October 1957, McCoy was killed in the crash of a B-47 Stratojet (DB-47B-35-BW), AF Serial No. 51-2177, of the 447th Bombardment Squadron, 321st Bombardment Wing. The six-engine bomber suffered wing failure northwest of downtown Orlando while taking part in a practice demonstration during the annual SAC Bombing Navigation and Reconnaissance Competition at Pinecastle Air Force Base. McCoy was the aircraft commander during the flight, and the mishap aircraft was one of two at Pinecastle that had been modified to carry the GAM-63 RASCAL air-to-surface missile.
At the time of his death, McCoy was the commander of the 321st Bombardment Wing, the host wing of Pinecastle AFB. A hugely popular figure in Central Florida, he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in a funeral that included a flyover of multiple B-47s.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “McCoy Air Force Base” is former United States Air Force base. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through McCoy, Force and Base, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6800632. Authority coordinates are 28.429, -81.309. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1940, 1947, 1951 and 1975.
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This entry incorporates text from “McCoy Air Force Base” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.