Revetment (aircraft)

USAF F-4D Phantom II fighters in their revetments at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand, c. 1967

A revetment, in military aviation, is a parking area for one or more aircraft that is surrounded by blast walls on three sides. These walls are as much about protecting neighbouring aircraft as it is to protect the aircraft within the revetment. If a combat aircraft fully loaded with fuel and munitions was to somehow be set on fire, by accident or design, then it could start a chain reaction, as the destruction of individual aircraft could set ablaze its neighbours. The blast walls around a revetment are designed to channel blast and damage upwards and outwards away from neighbouring aircraft.

Gallery

A Hawker Hurricane in a revetment at RAF Wittering, England, in late 1940
Soldiers construct aircraft revetments at RAF Ta Kali, Malta, using locally quarried limestone blocks, c. 1942
Refuelling and rearming a Spitfire Mark VC(T), in a revetment constructed from empty fuel tins filled with sand at RAF Ta Kali, Malta in 1942
A US Marine Corps Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat in a concrete revetment in 1942 at Camp Kearny, California
B-17 Flying Fortress bombers parked in revetments at Jackson Airfield, New Guinea, in 1943
A destroyed US Air Force Lockheed C-130 Hercules in Vietnam, c. 1967
A McDonnell Douglas F-4D Phantom II aircraft from the being parked in a revetment made from profiled steel panels at Kunsan Air Base, South Korea
A British Aerospace Harrier GR3 in a revetment at Belize International Airport in 1990