Fleet Air Arm control and the argument over engine development

Beatty's acceptance of RAF control of the Fleet Air Arm is criticized as too dependent on his own political strength. The assumption was that the Air Ministry would be unable to deny the navy the aircraft it needed while he could exert that influence. Separating naval aviation from the RAF in its early years would have been difficult because it formed a substantial part of the service. The later arrangement nevertheless restricted the navy's ability to expand and structure its own air arm. In the counterfactual argument, direct naval procurement could have accelerated engine development through investment in single-engine aircraft. The account contrasts that priority with an Air Ministry increasingly dominated by advocates of multi-engine bombers in the early 1930s, and links the imbalance to the loss of some of Britain's engine-development lead.