Armstrong recalls a Naval Academy debate whose participants agreed that the air wing could be the element most in need of change. A carrier's vulnerabilities and future usefulness therefore need to be considered alongside the aircraft it operates. Clarke cites HMS Argus in 1939 as an early drone-carrier example, while Armstrong recalls a US Navy fleet of 700 QH-50 DASH anti-submarine drones operating from destroyers in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Captain Stan Fischer's research follows the interwar development of the maintenance and logistics needed to sustain carrier aviation in the Second World War. Both Fischer and Armstrong had served as squadron maintenance officers, an experience that directed attention to keeping aircraft operational. Aircraft tactics cannot produce results when aircraft are unserviceable, so the sustaining organization belongs in any assessment of carrier combat power.
Chapter · 1:30:00-1:34:57
The carrier debate is also an air-wing and maintenance debate
A carrier cannot be assessed apart from its changing air wing, and its combat value disappears if maintenance and logistics cannot keep aircraft operational.