Searchlight Airport

The Searchlight Airport is a pre-War airport in the southeastern section of the Mojave Wasteland, directly south of Camp Searchlight. Its only entrance is a collapsed tunnel on the northern side of the airport.

Background
Originally built by the Army Air Corps as an emergency paved runway for pilots stationed at Nellis Air Force Base in the 1950s, the Searchlight Airport was eventually handed over to civilian authorities for use as a public airport. By the end of the 21st century, it was greatly expanded and reoriented, from a single runway aligned along the north-south axis to a fully-fledged airport with two east-to-west runways, a control tower, and permanent hangars and services. As the new airport would span Highway 95, the construction moved the highway into a reinforced tunnel that ran beneath the runways.

Layout
While there are no accessible buildings, there are two trunks on the tarmac side of the main airport terminal (facing in towards the runway) which contain large amounts of caps. Depending on the player character's level and Luck stat, the amount can range from 200 to over 1,000 caps. The facility is crawling with radscorpions of various sizes.

There are four jet planes in the area. They are all rusted and two of such have their landing gear stuck in junk piles, but otherwise appear to be intact. Underneath the jet plane at the west end of the runway is an ammo box along with two metal boxes. Sometimes these boxes contain large amounts of energy weapons, ammo, and missiles. The control tower has an empty interior and is inaccessible.

Appearances
The Searchlight Airport appears only in Fallout: New Vegas.

Behind the scenes
The Searchlight Airport is based on the real world location of Searchlight Airport, located two miles south of Searchlight, Nevada. It was built by the United States Air Force as an emergency alternate paved airstrip for Nellis Air Force Base in the 1950s.

Bugs
Climbing on top of the oil tanks and over the fence in the upper-left-hand corner of the airport allows for moving beyond the normal constraints of the map. This provides access to areas like The Fort and the Legate's camp before progress in the game would allow for such access.