Vegas air show, s’il vous plait?

Sunday, Oct. 9, 2005 | 10:10 a.m.

Sacre bleu!

First, Las Vegas takes Paris' most impressive icon, the Eiffel Tower, and turns it into the centerpiece for a Strip resort.

Now, it's trying to steal business from the Paris Air Show.

That, at least, is one of the upshots of a proposal by Las Vegas-based AeroQuest USA that is gaining momentum.

Chief executive Bill Clarke has assembled a team that includes some of the driving forces behind the World Market Center to develop an aerospace showcase at the proposed Ivanpah Airport south of Las Vegas.

Using the World Market Center -- the new project growing downtown where furniture concepts are displayed for the industry's buyers and sellers -- as a model, AeroQuest is gathering support from aircraft manufacturers and their suppliers to bring the world to Southern Nevada to see all their innovations.

Included in the plan would be air shows once or twice a year that developers hope would someday rival the Paris Air Show, the premiere aviation event that draws thousands of spectators to France and worldwide interest.

"It would be like the World Market Center and the (Las Vegas Motor) Speedway," said Randy Walker, director of the Clark County Department of Aviation, who said county officials were first approached about the proposal about a year ago.

"Las Vegas would be an ideal place to do something like this because we have the hotel infrastructure in place to do it," he said.

If Southern Nevada could host an air show that rivaled the Paris version, project insiders believe it could lure supporting businesses, including avionics and other high-tech companies that would diversify the area's tourism-dependent economy.

The Paris Air Show is held every other year, including an event earlier this year that attracted 480,000 visitors over seven days. There were 206 official delegations from 88 countries in attendance; the show had 1,926 exhibitors, 238 aircraft on display and 4,000 accredited journalists.

The next Paris Air Show is scheduled in June 2007.

Lisa Mayo-DeRiso of Mayo & Associates, a consultant who worked on the World Market Center project for six years and has been with Clarke and his team for three, is serving as spokeswoman for the group.

She said there are several parallels with the furniture showcase that, by most accounts, is being credited with providing an enormous shot in the arm for downtown Las Vegas.

"It turned out even better than I had ever imagined," Mayo-DeRiso said of the World Market Center.

Construction and design already have begun on other buildings within the World Market Center campus, but the first structure -- a 12-story building just south of the Spaghetti Bowl off Interstate 15 -- was the site of a gathering of an estimated 70,000 people in July. The arrival of the WMC is being credited as one of the reasons Las Vegas' tourism numbers are up dramatically in 2005.

Mayo-DeRiso said putting the pieces together for an aeronautics showcase at the Ivanpah airport involved contacting aircraft manufacturers from around the world, including Boeing, Airbus Industrie, Lockheed Martin and Embraer, as well as the support companies that develop products for the manufacturing of aircraft -- the makers of engines, high-tech navigational components and aircraft interior materials.

Clarke enlisted the assistance of UNLV's business and engineering experts. Team members also are meeting with government leaders for help, working at the local, state and federal levels.

One potential opportunity is a federal grant program.

Congress appropriated $1 million to study the feasibility of developing an international air trade show, a move made in 2004 in response to France's reluctance to assist the United States with its war effort in Iraq and the American response of pulling resources from the Paris Air Show.

Southern Nevada has some tough competition for federal grant money since Dayton, Ohio, home of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and numerous air defense contractors, has similar aspirations to showcase the industry.

But Mayo-DeRiso and Walker point out that Southern Nevada has its own strengths, including the ability to play host to large numbers of people at one time, a top-notch military presence in Nellis Air Force Base and acres of developable land.

Walker noted that the development of Ivanpah is in its infancy -- environmental clearances haven't been approved yet for the proposed airport about 35 miles south of Las Vegas and local leaders say they don't expect to need relief from overcrowding at McCarran International until around 2017.

"They have a pretty big vision," Walker said of the AeroQuest proposal. "Even if they put it all together, they can't move forward until we have permission to build something out there. But it makes sense to agree to sit down and talk about it now because it's something that really has potential."

Richard N. Velotta can be reached at (702) 259-4061 or at velotta@ lasvegassun.com.