Business View Magazine | August 2020

162 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE AUGUST 2020 O scoda–Wurtsmith Airport is a public use airport located on the western shore of Lake Huron, three miles northwest of the central business district of Oscoda, an unincorporated community in Iosco County, Michigan. The Airport covers an area of approximately 2,000 acres, at an elevation of 634 feet above sea level. It has one asphalt paved runway, designated 7/25, which measures 11,800 by 200 feet. Oscoda-Wurtsmith got its start in 1923 as Loud-Reames Aviation Field, a soft-surface landing site for Army Air Corps aircraft being deployed from Selfridge Field, near Detroit. It was renamed Camp Skeel in 1924, for World War I pilot Captain Burt E. Skeel. Training operations at Camp Skeel included utilizing nearby forested areas as bombing and strafing ranges. It was also a base of training for winter maneuvers, from 1924 through 1944, by the 1st Pursuit Group at Selfridge Army Air Base. During those winter maneuvers, the army pilots and mechanics battled snow squalls and bitter cold temperatures as practice for winter warfare operating techniques, which included getting cold aircraft engines started. Oil was heated in drums over open fires of pitch pine and then poured into the engines. Crews then worked fast to get the engines running before the oil congealed. In addition to maintaining the aircraft under those extreme weather conditions, pilots practiced landing on a snow and ice-covered lake using aircraft equipped with skis. In 1942, the airfield, with three 5000’ X 150’ hard surface, concrete runways, was renamed Oscoda Army Air Field under the jurisdiction of the Third Fighter Command and the 100th Base HQ and Air Base Oscoda- Wurtsmith A I R P O R T A successful repurposing