Béarn's specialized lifts and two-level hangar

Béarn used separate forward, center, and aft elevators for fighters, reconnaissance aircraft, and torpedo bombers. The small forward fighter lift could handle aircraft up to two tons and had a two-level arrangement intended to permit takeoffs while it was lowered. Clamshell covers over the two larger lifts kept the flight deck usable during a cycle, but the center lift took three minutes and the aft lift five. A carrier surprised with its aircraft below, as HMS Glorious was, could not quickly bring a torpedo strike through that aft lift. The lower hangar did not receive aircraft directly from the lifts; an aircraft had to hang from rails beneath a lift before being transferred between the maintenance and operational levels. The arrangement was ingenious for moving damaged aircraft, but too laborious for the untidy demands of sustained wartime flying.