The Rise And Fall Of The Kit Build Hardened Aircraft Shelter

Purpose and practicality are at the centre of aircraft hangar buildings, and in the overwhelming majority of cases, the key is to protect aircraft from weather, environmental conditions and small levels of debris such as sandstorms, hailstorms and rocks picked up in the wind.

The overriding priority of a hangar is that it can be constructed and set up quickly in a range of environments so that aircraft can be protected as soon as possible, and there is a wide range of structures of varying materials that manage this excellently.

However, for the latter half of the 20th century, some small hangars attempted to not only protect aeroplanes from the rain but also from much more dangerous hazards falling from the sky.

To a degree they worked, but as the wars they were designed for escalated, the concept became increasingly unworkable.

Shield For A Previous War

The Hardened Aircraft Shelter (HAS) is a type of prefabricated, standardised aircraft hangar that was designed to be bombproof, with the intention of protecting aircraft housed on military air bases from attack.

Whilst its widespread adoption was a consequence of the Cold War, the initial impetus for a need to better protect fighter aircraft was during the Six-Day War of 1967, when an early and major turning point was when an entire air force was destroyed due to a lack of protection.

The most common design was one standardised by NATO, which whilst only large enough to house fighter aircraft and associated equipment was able to survive a direct hit by a 500 lb bomb, as well as resist the impact of larger bombs that landed nearby.

As with many military inventions during the Cold War, the main focus of the hangar’s construction was to provide some level of protection during a nuclear strike.

The theory is that a HAS could protect fighter-bomber aircraft capable of firing nuclear warheads, allowing for the potential for a retaliatory strike.

In practice, this was a rather tenuous justification, as whilst the hangar and the plane would survive, the design was only large enough for fighter-size aircraft, associated weaponry and an extremely small crew.

Were a nuclear bomb to land in or around an airbase, and it does not lead to a series of retaliatory intercontinental ballistic missile strikes that render most of the world essentially inhospitable, to an extent that is still the subject of research and discussion, theoretically, a retaliatory strike could be launched.

In practice, however, the destruction of runways, support buildings and barracks housing Air Force staff would make starting a mission difficult, and any return to base all but impossible.

The true end of the Hardened Aircraft Shelter as a major component of aerial warfare was with the development of precision-guided munitions (PGM), which allowed bigger and more damaging bombs to more easily directly hit targets.

During the Persian Gulf War, HAS buildings were destroyed very easily by PGM, making them 

an expensive distraction, especially since the vast flight crews were usually housed in vulnerable tents.

Whilst existing shelters still survive as a first line of defence against enemies that lack PGM systems, the greater importance is on having hangar buildings that can be put together and taken apart quickly in forward operating bases.