''Baylander'' (IX-514), ex-''YFU-79'', was a United States Navy Helicopter Landing Trainer (HLT), billed as the world's smallest

aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and hangar facilities for supporting, arming, deploying and recovering carrier-based aircraft, shipborne aircraft. Typically it is the ...

. It served as a practice landing site for

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

pilots in the United States Navy, Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and National Guard.

History

The ship entered operations with the United States Navy in 1968 as harbor utility craft ''YFU-79'' and served in the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...

; from mid-1970 it served with the United States Army. At the end of the war ''YFU-79'' was withdrawn to

Guam Guam ( ; ) is an island that is an Territories of the United States, organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. Guam's capital is Hagåtña, Guam, Hagåtña, and the most ...

. In the mid-1980s it was returned to the Navy and converted to a Helicopter Landing Trainer by Bender Shipbuilding in

Mobile, Alabama Mobile ( , ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population was 187,041 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. After a successful vote to annex areas west of the city limits in July 2023, Mobil ...

, entering service on 31 March 1986 at

Naval Air Station Pensacola Naval Air Station Pensacola or NAS Pensacola (formerly NAS/KNAS until changed circa 1970 to allow Nassau International Airport, now Lynden Pindling International Airport, to have IATA code NAS), "The Cradle of Naval Aviation", is a United Sta ...

, Florida. By August 2006, she had achieved 100,000 accident-free helicopter landings, and by the time of her retirement had surpassed 120,000 landings. After being taken out of service and struck from the Naval Register in 2011, ''Baylander'' was sold into private hands instead of being scrapped. In 2014, it was moved to the

Brooklyn Bridge Park Brooklyn Bridge Park is an park on the Brooklyn side of the East River in New York City. Designed by landscape architecture firm Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, the park is located on a plot of land from Atlantic Avenue in the south, un ...

Marina in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

and opened as a

museum ship A museum ship, also called a memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public for educational or memorial purposes. Some are also used for training and recruitment purposes, mostly for the small numb ...

. By mid-2016, the vessel had been relocated to the West Harlem Piers on the Hudson River. , the ''Baylander'' serves as a restaurant and bar.

Specifications

''Baylander'' was built as Yard No. 238 by Pacific Coast Engineering (PACECO) of

Alameda, California Alameda ( ; ; Spanish for "Avenue (landscape), tree-lined path") is a city in Alameda County, California, United States, located in the East Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), East Bay region of the Bay Area. The city is built on an informal archipe ...

. It is long, has a beam of , and displaces at full load. Its

helicopter deck A helicopter deck (or helo deck) is a helicopter pad on the deck of a ship, usually located on the stern and always clear of obstacles that would prove hazardous to a helicopter landing. In the United States Navy, it is commonly and properly refe ...

was the same size as that of a .

References

External links

*
Homepage of The Baylander Steel Beach
{{coord, 40.819171, -73.962104, display=title 1968 ships Ships built in California Helicopter carriers Unclassified miscellaneous vessels of the United States Navy Vietnam War auxiliary ships of the United States Aircraft carriers of the United States Navy Training ships of the United States Navy