Thursday, April 11, 2002 | 8:20 a.m.
Behind the sprawling hotels and two-story businesses crouched on Rancho Drive, the North Las Vegas Airport hums with activity.
The paved runways cover more than 823 acres of flat desert in the middle of the building-choked valley.
Nearly 600 pilots land or take off daily from its runways, making the airport the second-busiest in Nevada and the 45th-busiest in the nation, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The community airport opened Dec. 7, 1941, and recently celebrated its 60th anniversary this year.
After six decades it continues to be a hub of activity for commuters, tourists, celebrities and plane enthusiasts, said Mark Hall-Patton, administrator for the Howard W. Cannon Aviation Museum at McCarran International Airport, and the leading historian for Southern Nevada airports.
"Pilots like it because it's friendly and has everything they need," Hall-Patton said. "We have people flying in just for the day, flying out and back for the day. It's a busy little airport."
On a recent weekday morning customers sat on the observation deck connected to the airport's restaurant eating breakfast, as the buzz of small airplanes taking off and landing drifted over the tarmac.
"They've come a long way from dirt runways," Hall-Patton said. "This airport has set the tone for what we feel (at McCarran) that whatever you do, you do it right and you do it the best."
The North Las Vegas Airport, once owned by Howard Hughes, was initially opened as a rest stop for pilots flying from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City.
In recent years it has become a model airport for the FAA's Runway Safety Program, said Dave Kurner, the FAA's regional Runway Safety Program manager in Los Angeles.
"Informally I call it the Poster-child of the FAA Safety Program,'" Kurner said. "It's their attitude. They are one of the busiest (airports), but they are constantly modifying and changing."
Since its ominous opening on the "date which will live in infamy," the scrappy little airport has quietly grown up as the city grew around its sprawling runways.
Scraping by
Florence Murphy was the first licensed female pilot in Nevada in 1938, and the first woman to co-own, build and operate an airport.
"We scraped the sagebrush off the desert and had runways running north, south, east and west," Murphy said.
On the airport's opening day the three owners -- Bud Barret, Murphy and her husband, Red, -- mingled with the crowds who came to watch a free air show.
"Everyone in town came out there to see the planes perform," Murphy, 90, said. "But right in the middle of the show we saw (a plane) come in low. We didn't know what for."
The low-flying plane was from Nellis Air Force Base and had come to inform the celebratory crowds of the attacks on Hawaii's Pearl Harbor. The airport was immediately shut down.
"We were just shocked," Murphy said. "Everyone was grounded and we had people that had flown in from Arizona, Utah. It took weeks to get them home."
Murphy was left alone to run the airport when her husband and Barret were both recruited by the Army Air Corps to train pilots in Arizona.
She did what was needed to keep the airport operating under war conditions. Civilian flights were limited to those who were cleared by the government, such as multimillionaire Hughes.
Hughes called Murphy one day in 1943 to inform her he planned to fly into North Las Vegas sometime that night. Unfortunately, the airport wasn't prepared for a nighttime arrival.
"We didn't have any lights on the runways, so I lined up a bunch of cars and waited," Murphy said.
When Murphy finally saw Hughes' airplane's lights come over the horizon, she called for all of the cars to shine their lights on the runway.
Hughes became a regular arrival, often taking Murphy and her staff to dinner at El Rancho hotel.
"He was a very laid-back, nice guy," Murphy said. "But he never did sit down with us. He always said he had some other thing to do. He made sure we were fed, though."
Hughes bought the airport in 1967 from the city of North Las Vegas.
The airport would change hands for the final time in 1987 when Clark County purchased the land and buildings from Hughes' estate, Summa Corporation.
Murphy is still active in the community and is a Las Vegas Realtor. She doesn't think much of her contribution to the airport during World War II, but she's proud of its accomplishments.
"I never dreamed it would turn into what it has," Murphy said.
Pilot play
Each morning at the North Las Vegas airport, an informal group of pilots meet for coffee and doughnuts in a hangar close to the runways.
Leaning back in plastic and worn, upholstered chairs, the group discusses political topics, the construction that seems to be a constant at the growing airport, weather and, of course, flying.
"You don't think about anything when you are up there," said Arthur Drake, a Las Vegas resident and a pilot for 28 years.
The group of nearly 20 men pilot their own planes on weekly trips to area airports in Southern California, Arizona and, occasionally, Mexico.
"We call it The $100 Hamburger Club," Drake said. "We fly down, eat lunch and turn around and come back."
Within each hangar at the airport that the pilots rent from Clark County are neat stacks of tools, equipment and airplane parts. Many of the planes at the airport are vintage planes or well-maintained planes that require constant upkeep.
"We share," Drake said. "We help each other out. Pilots are a tight group."
Peppering their conversation is the constant bump and squeal of small planes' tires landing on the runway behind them.
"It's evolved a lot since we started," Ron Kodimer, a local pilot, said of the airport. "It was a small unregulated airport."
"It used to be you didn't have to talk to anybody," said Joe Waitman, a local pilot and aviation specialist for Rogge Insurance Services Aviation. "You'd just get out, look around and go."
Today, when the men climb into their lovingly restored and polished planes, they follow detailed instructions from the airport's air traffic control tower and the painted lines along the runway that the airport women's pilots organization, called the '99s, painstakingly monitor.
"It's become much more safe," Waitman said.
The '99s meet the third Monday of each month to ensure and educate young pilots about the airport's safety program, Mardell Haskins, international director for the '99s, said. Haskins lives in Overton and flies into the North Las Vegas airport at least once a month.
The national '99s organization began in 1929 from a group of women pilots who wanted representation in the male-dominated field of flying.
The women sent sign-up forms to all of the 117 women pilots licensed in the United States at the time. They named the group after the number of women who sent in $1 to become a member.
The Southern Nevada chapter of '99s was formed in 1946, making it the oldest aviation organization in Nevada.
The group attempts to draw female pilots into the organization and into the sky with fly parties.
The annual spring Poker Run is one of the more popular fly parties, Haskins said. Members fly to airports in Sandy Valley, Searchlight, Mesquite, Overton, Jean and Boulder City, and choose a playing card from a waiting member. The person who returns with the best hand wins.
"We love to fly," Haskins said. "But we are also serious about the safety program out there."
The Nevada '99s are also the official sponsors of the FAA Safety Program at the airport. The group members physically go out onto the tarmac and paint the wide, white lines and other markings that prevent pilot error along the runways at the airport.
"That's some of what I like about the North Las Vegas Airport -- it's small and the people are great," Haskins said. "They are always trying out there."
The airport's determination to succeed has been tested since its opening hours, yet it continues to examine the needs of pilots as well as its role in the community.
A state-of-the-art air traffic control tower is set to open this year, and a new hangar project will break ground this summer.
"From the FAA standpoint," Kurner said, "they just did it right."
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