RFA Reliant (A131)
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| Career |  |
|---|---|
| Launched: | 6 July 1976 |
| Completed: | 20 January 1977 as ASTRONOMER |
| Taken up from trade: | 28 May 1982 |
| Commissioned: | 16 November 1983 renamed RELIANT(3) |
| Decommissioned: | 25 July 1986 |
| Fate: | Sold back into merchant service on 27 October 1986 and renamed ADMIRALTY ISLAND. Renamed WEALTHY RIVER in April 1989. Arrived Alang for demolition on 9 July 1998. |
| Struck: | 1986 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 28000 tons full load. |
| Length: | 204 m |
| Beam: | 31 m |
| Draught: | 7.9 m |
| Propulsion: | 1 x 10 cyl Sulzer diesel. 29000 bhp. One shaft. |
| Speed: | 28 knots (52 km/h) |
| Range: | |
| Complement: | 61 RFA 150 RN |
| Armament: | 4 x 20 mm guns |
| Aircraft: | Up to five Westland Sea King |
| Motto: | |
RFA Reliant (A131) was a helicopter support ship of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. She was built in Poland at the Gdańsk Shipyard in 1977as a conventional container ship. She was taken up from the trade in 1982 for service in the Falklands War and was fitted with the Arapaho containerised aircraft handling system, a hangar and a flight deck. After the war, she commissioned into the RFA. Her first operational sortie was to the coast of Lebanon in support of the British Army 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 completely unsatisfactory for handling aircraft. She was decommissioned in 1986 and sold back into conventional merchant service.
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