Searchlight Airport

Searchlight Airport is a pre-War airport in the south-eastern Mojave Wasteland, south of Camp Searchlight. Its only entrance is a 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
The large airport marks the southern boundary of the playable area, with the chain link that surrounds it denying access to the valley beyond. The airport building and the control tower are inaccessible, but contain two trunks which can spawn plenty of caps. The sun-blasted tarmac is a favored place for radscorpions of all kinds, which congregate on the hot surfaces.

The airport is only accessible through the collapsed highway tunnel, making the radscorpions relatively easy to take out even with modest statistics. The four jets still in the airport are derelicts.

Notable loot

 * Two metal boxes and an ammunition box: Underneath the jet parked at the western end of the runway.
 * Two trunks: By the main building. Contain caps, lots of them if the player has Fortune Finder.

Behind the scenes

 * The real Searchlight Airport is far smaller, has only a single runway, and no permanent facilities.

Bugs

 * The player can access the normally unplayable area if they can jump onto the roof of the main building by stacking boxes or dropped ammunition cans. This grants access to the empty landscape beyond, generated using USGS data. The player can walk all the way to the edge and jump off into the endless water. It's also possible to jump onto the white containers east of the main building, then over the fence.

Appearances
Searchlight Airport appears only in Fallout: New Vegas.