446 Flight scouts in a Mediterranean fleet exercise

The 446 Flight diary records the daily work behind interwar naval aviation. A January 1928 entry describes two wireless tests in pouring rain, the first unsuccessful and the second successful. An August exercise then sets a powerful Red battle fleet with HMS Courageous and HMS Eagle against a Blue force with fewer battleships but more cruisers. Aircraft were ordered to locate the opposing battlecruiser and main fleet while maintaining extended and close submarine patrols. Wireless tuning delayed one reconnaissance launch and limited how far an unreliable aircraft could safely be sent. A massed attack by two Courageous flights and one Eagle flight achieved only about three hits from sixteen bombs, a poor return for such a concentrated strike.