Why Argus was worth investing in through 1942

A 1927 hull survey judged Argus fit for another fifteen years, giving the Royal Navy a planning horizon to about 1942. Once the Ten Year Rule ended in 1932, that same year became a practical date around which the service could frame rearmament plans. Argus had already relieved Hermes on the China Station, and her experimental classification under the Washington Naval Treaty let the Navy retain her without sacrificing replacement tonnage in the ordinary way. The February 1936 conversion therefore placed expensive boilers and deck changes into a ship expected to have about six useful years left. A hydropneumatic catapult was considered and its fittings retained even after the equipment went to Ark Royal, although the planned aircraft proved able to operate without it. The sequence presents Argus as a deliberate bridge between treaty-era experimentation and a possible wartime drone capability.