Caspar John on carrier systems and naval aviation

John asks the audience to imagine an RAF station operating 60 to 80 single-engine or small twin-engine aircraft, along with its fuel, stores, firefighting equipment, heavy anti-aircraft batteries, power station, radio, radar, and about 2,000 people. He then places the whole complex inside a self-propelled steel box roughly 800 feet long, 90 feet wide, and 90 feet high, with aircraft operating from the roof. The analogy presents an aircraft carrier as a compact mobile system rather than merely a ship with a flight deck. His interservice argument applies the same practical test to policy: naval aviation afloat and the Royal Air Force ashore can each perform tasks the other cannot. Britain therefore had to decide whether it could forgo uniquely maritime air tasks, rather than ask whether the Navy should possess a private air force.