RFA ''Reliant'' (A131) was a helicopter support ship of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary.
She was built in 1977 in
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is divided into Voivodeships of Poland, sixteen voivodeships and is the fifth most populous member state of the European Union (EU), with over 38 mill ...
, at the
Gdańsk Shipyard
The Gdańsk Shipyard ( pl, Stocznia Gdańska, formerly Lenin Shipyard) is a large Polish shipyard, located in the city of Gdańsk. The yard gained international fame when Solidarity () was founded there in September 1980. It is situated on the w ...
, as a conventional container ship with roll-on/roll-off capability for loading vehicles and containers for the
Harrison Line.
She was named ''Astronomer''. She was
taken up from the trade in 1982 for service in the
Falklands War
The Falklands War ( es, link=no, Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territori ...
as an aircraft transport, being fitted with a temporary mid-ships flight deck and hangar forward to carry 13 helicopters.
At the end of 1982 she was chartered by the UK MoD and a more substantial conversion was undertaken, and was fitted with the
Arapaho containerized aircraft handling system, a hangar and a flight deck and she was commissioned into the RFA Fleet as RFA ''Reliant''. Her first operational sortie was to the coast of Lebanon in support of the
Multinational Force in Lebanon
The Multinational Force in Lebanon (MNF) was an international peacekeeping force created in August 1982 following a 1981 U.S.-brokered ceasefire between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel to end their involvement in the co ...
and the British Army units based in Beirut, eventually evacuating the same in February 1984. Upon returning to UK she proceeded to the Falklands for what was expected to be an extended deployment. However, it did not last long as the Arapaho system proved to be unsatisfactory for handling aircraft. She was decommissioned in 1986 and sold back into conventional merchant service.
References
Ships of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary
1976 ships
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