RFA Reliant (A131)

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.