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Former Wurtsmith Air Force Base - Oscoda Mi

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2018 11:40 am
by alexp2805-
Hey all. I'm in Oscoda, Mi on vacation and around 8:30pm last night I saw a C-130 Hercules do a extremely low pass along the entire beach and then onward to the bay following the coast. Then around 8:50pm the same C-130 came back and did a minimum radius turn in the distance and eventually landing at the former Wurtsmith Air Force base.

That being said,what was the Hercules doing at the former base? Does the government still run it? The base ended operations in 1994, so what is it being used for?

If anybody knows anything about thing please let me know!

Thanks,

Re: Former Wurtsmith Air Force Base - Oscoda Mi

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2018 1:21 pm
by Bretten Bailey
The airport occupies a portion of the former base. While the military doesn't run it, sometimes military flight ops are still flown out of airports depending on assignment (you can see this at quite a few airports). Outside of General Aviation traffic, Kalitta Air (maintenance operation) and the Wurtsmith Division of the Yankee Air Museum are the main operations at the airport.

The airport is ran by an Airport Authority (so, in turn, the government technically does run it as the commissioners are appointed by the government officials), but its a public use airport not privately held. This is just like the majority of the public airports in the country.

Re: Former Wurtsmith Air Force Base - Oscoda Mi

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2018 9:26 pm
by alexp2805-
That makes more sense! Thanks! Still don't know why it took off and flew along the shore for 20 minutes then landed :lol: