Skies will be filled over speedway

Pauline Bell

Thursday, Sept. 12, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

A big part of the planning for this weekend's opening of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway involves managing air traffic.

While the race cars are expected to stay close to the ground, speedway activities will generate a fair amount of air traffic. And the track is next door to Nellis Air Force Base, which controls the skies over the speedway.

The speedway eventually will have a heliport capable of handling up to 40 choppers at a time. They will be used to transport VIP spectators to and from McCarran International Airport, the North Las Vegas Air Terminal and Strip resorts, said speedway President Richie Clyne.

Additionally, emergency aircraft -- likely helicopters -- will stand by at the speedway in case of a race-related accident, blimps will be launched to provide aerial television network coverage and helicopters, blimps or balloons containing satellite uplinks for on-track communication networks will hover over the track during races.

And don't forget the small planes that are expected to fly over the racetrack towing advertising banners in their wake. And then there's the Flying Elvi, the glitzy parachute team that's supposed to jump into the speedway as part of Sunday's opening ceremonies.

It's clear the skies over the speedway could start to get crowded, not to mention Nellis traffic.

Besides being home to about 100 aircraft, including F-15 and F-16 fighters, OA-10 attack planes and HH-60 combat search-and-rescue helicopters, the base is a world-renowned training facility known for its weapons school and air warrior exercises such as the annual Red Flag operation.

Maj. Kevin Beebe of the 57th Operational Support Squadron at Nellis said having the speedway and its accompanying air traffic next door is "not much of a problem at all."

That's because most of the speedway's air traffic is expected to be on weekends while the bulk of Nellis' traffic occurs on weekdays.

Beebe said it's unlikely that a national security emergency would interfere with a scheduled race. He's confident that Nellis air traffic controllers have the facilities and personnel to accommodate any traffic generated by the speedway and the base at the same time.

Officials from the speedway, Nellis and the control towers at McCarran and the North Las Vegas Air Terminal have met to plan air routes for helicopters accessing the speedway in hopes of making the situation less confusing.

"What's critical here is the proximity of the track to the Nellis operation," said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Paul Strybing. "We wanted to work with the Nellis folks so that the choppers -- a small number to begin with -- traverse and enter their (Nellis) air space with little or no impact.

"We got a lot of good information from the Daytona Speedway, which sits right next to the airport there."

The result is a memorandum of understanding that is expected to be signed by all parties, including private helicopter operators, that establishes the rules for aircraft going to and from the speedway, he said.

Helicopters ferrying people from Strip hotels to the speedway will travel counter-clockwise in a racetrack pattern -- the term has nothing to do with the speedway -- with northbound traffic traveling east and southbound traffic traveling west and within a half-mile of the Strip.

The turn is at Russell Road with no chopper traffic allowed to the south because of McCarran. Helicopters that pick people up at hotels west of the Strip must travel the racetrack pattern in a southerly direction, turning east at Russell and then heading northbound when they get within a half-mile east of the Strip.

They continue flying parallel to the Strip all the way out to the speedway. They are handed off from the McCarran control tower to the Nellis tower at about Charleston Boulevard, Strybing said.

For the races this weekend, expected to draw an inaugural crowd of 30,000 to 40,000, four or five helicopters will be used to transport people from points south to the speedway, Clyne said.